King Khalid Int’l Airport partially resumes operations despite fresh Houthi threats
Saudi Arabia intercepted drones and missiles over its capital Riyadh and southern areas yesterday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said, as fighting with the Iran-aligned Houthis persisted.
The conflict has become an increasingly destabilising front in the US-Israeli offensive against Iran, turning US ally Saudi Arabia into a pressure point in the wider war.
Yesterday, Saudi civil defence authorities issued emergency alerts for Riyadh, Abha and Khamis Mushait, before announcing minutes later that the danger had passed.
The coalition said two drones and a ballistic missile were launched towards Riyadh, and a cruise missile towards the southern city of Khamis Mushait. It later said it intercepted ten ballistic missiles fired towards southern Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis warned they could again target Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, which partially resumed operations yesterday following a deadly attack earlier this month. The flight tracking data from Flightradar24 showed little traffic at the airport.
The Houthis said they attacked the airport and Saudi oil facilities on Saturday. Saudi authorities did not comment directly on the Houthi statements.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the airport remained a “military target” and warned all airlines, airport staffers and travellers against using it.
Late on Saturday, the airport said Terminal 1 would be designated for domestic flights and Terminal 2 for international flights operated by national carriers.
The airport halted operations on October 10 following an attack - claimed by the Houthis - that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300 others, the deadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade.
Saudi Arabia has stepped up its strikes against the Houthis after the group seized strategic territory along the Red Sea coast last month, closing in on Bab el-Mandeb Strait - a global maritime chokepoint and shipping route for Gulf oil producers on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula to the Strait of Hormuz.
The renewed fighting in Yemen has shattered a UN-brokered truce that had largely held since 2022. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 at the head of a coalition supporting the internationally recognised government after the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa a year earlier.