At least 12 killed in Riyadh airport strike as operations are suspended

At least 12 people were killed and 309 others wounded in a strike on Riyadh's international airport, according to Saudi civil aviation officials. The attack hit King Khalid International Airport and led to the suspension of operations at the sprawling facility. A diplomatic source blamed the strike on a missile fired by Yemen's Houthis.

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Saudi officials said four of those killed were Saudi citizens, while the dead also included two people from Bangladesh and one each from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt. Aviation officials did not name the Houthis in their statement, although the group has been accused of carrying out repeated strikes against Saudi targets. The attack prompted health officials to activate a rare mass call-up of doctors to deal with what one medical source described as a serious emergency situation.

The scale of the casualties and the disruption at one of the kingdom's main airports underline the seriousness of the incident. Foreign embassies warned their citizens to avoid the airport, while one passenger said they saw a strike in the domestic terminal and described people running as injuries unfolded in front of them. Two doctors said several pilgrims heading to Mecca were among the wounded, adding to the wider human impact of the attack.

The strike also carries wider regional significance because it comes amid a renewed phase of conflict linked to Yemen. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have launched a wave of attacks against Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers since a truce in their long-running war with Yemen's Riyadh-backed government unravelled in July. Saudi Arabia has led an international coalition supporting Yemen's government militarily since 2015, and the kingdom has increasingly found itself drawn deeper into the conflict.

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The attack came as the wider Middle East war has continued to affect regional security, energy supplies and markets. Hours after the Riyadh strike, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said a projectile had landed near King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, and the coalition later said it had intercepted a missile southeast of the capital. The Houthis also claimed a series of strikes targeting the airport on Thursday that killed three people and damaged a plane, though they did not immediately take responsibility for any new attacks on Friday.

What remains unclear is the full extent of the damage inside the airport and whether the strike was part of a broader coordinated campaign. Saudi aviation officials have not publicly named the Houthis, and the diplomatic attribution has not been independently confirmed in the supplied material. The key questions now are how long airport operations will remain suspended, whether further attacks follow, and how Saudi authorities and their allies respond in the coming hours and days.

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