An explosion at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh led to the facility being evacuated on Saturday, according to two international news agencies. The reports come only days after Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed two successful attacks on the same hub.
One agency, citing an eyewitness, said more than a dozen ambulances were seen heading to the airport. Saudi authorities had not commented, and the airport advised travellers to check with their airlines before going there.
Recent Houthi attacks on Saudi airports and their toll
The blast came a day after authorities said three Saudi nationals, one of them a pilot, were killed in two Houthi attacks the previous day. Separately, three more people died in Houthi strikes on two Saudi airports on 6 and 7 October.
The Iran-backed group has carried out these attacks as fighting with Saudi-backed government forces has sharply intensified.
Why the Houthis are targeting Saudi Arabia
The Houthis say they are attacking Saudi Arabia because of its support for government forces in Yemen’s civil war. The rebels control most of the country’s north-west.
The conflict deepened after the Houthis seized strategically important parts of the Red Sea coast in a swift offensive, including the port of Mokha on the Bab al-Mandab Strait. That strait is the narrowest point of the Red Sea and a chokepoint for global shipping. Pro-government forces have since said they had taken control of it at the southern end of the Red Sea.
Truce breakdown and the Houthi maritime embargo
A Saudi-led coalition was formed in 2015 to prevent the Houthis from taking over Yemen from its internationally recognised government. A temporary ceasefire was brokered in 2022, after years of air strikes and ground fighting that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
That informal truce began to unravel in July. The Houthis then announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia and launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea. They said they were retaliating against a years-long Saudi blockade and an air strike on Sanaa airport.
