Yemen’s Houthis have launched a missile attack on Riyadh’s international airport in Saudi Arabia, with dozens reported wounded and a witness describing panic in the terminal.
Saudi authorities did not confirm any new attack or evacuation, but one witness reported hearing an explosion while waiting to board a flight, and another said they saw a strike that left people wounded.
“I was on gate ۴۰۳,” at the domestic terminal, the witness told Agence France-Presse. “I saw [gate} ۴۰۱ hit, I saw injured in front of my eyes. Everyone was running.”
A source at a local hospital told the news agency that five people were in intensive care after being wounded at the airport, and “dozens” more had been injured.
The relative of one injured person said they had been wounded in the shoulders and arms by shattered glass and taken to hospital.
Witnesses said people were being evacuated from the airport.
Saturday’s incident comes amid an escalation of missile strikes by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi on the kingdom. The airport has already been attacked twice this week, leaving four people dead and others wounded, and badly damaging an aircraft.
The Houthis have repeatedly attacked Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers after a truce in their long-running war with Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government unravelled in July.
The attack came as forces allied to the UN-recognised government in Yemen claim to have mounted a successful offensive to retake the Bab al-Mandab strait from Houthi rebels, but accounts vary as to whether the push has been repelled.
A Houthi spokesperson said forces from the Saudi-backed government based in Aden “were targeted with a large number of ballistic missiles, artillery support and heavy weapons, resulting in the destruction of more than ۲۲ armoured vehicles and the killing and wounding of dozens, including a number of commanders.
“More than ۳۰ ambulances arrived in Aden to transport the dead and wounded from the Saudi enemy’s mobilisations.”
By contrast, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed al-Jaber, said: “Blessed Friday and victory for every Yemeni and Arab. Bab al-Mandab has been cleared of the remnants of the Houthi terrorist militia.”
The exposed ۵ sq mile (۱۳ sq km) Perim Island straddles the strait, acting as a lookout point for all traffic from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden and towards the Indian Ocean. Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the president of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), one of the main political forces in the south of Yemen, claimed the island and coastal area had been recaptured from Houthi hands.
An official military spokesperson for the UN-recognised government forces qualified the claim, saying only half the area had been recaptured so far. Waddah al-Dabish said newly established Houthi defensive lines had been broken on the land next to the strait, leading to the death of thousands of Houthi fighters.
It is thought that as many as ۵۰۰ Houthis fighters are stationed on the island, and Saudi Arabia is desperate to be able to report that the strait has been reclaimed to show that the land counteroffensive it launched at the beginning of the week is advancing.
The report came as the United Nations’ special envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, admitted to the UN security council in New York that Yemen – the poorest country in the world – had lapsed back into full-scale war and said the first victims would be women and children.
The Houthis seized control of the strait two weeks ago, and said no Saudi-linked commercial traffic would be permitted to go through the narrow waterway. The Houthis are waging a war to remove Saudi influence from Yemen, and have been mounting missile attacks on Riyadh in support of the objective.
There have been previous premature reports of military breakthroughs by the Saudi-backed Yemeni government since it launched its counteroffensive at the start of the week, but the recapture of the land by the strait and Perim Island (also known as Mayyun Island) is a military prize western governments desperately need.
