The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has vowed to retaliate after a suspected Houthi missile attack on Riyadh airport killed ۱۲ people and wounded more than ۳۰۰, as Donald Trump said the US could join its military campaign.
Saudi Arabia blamed the Iran-allied Houthi rebel movement for the strike on the airport on Saturday, which damaged passenger terminals. It was the deadliest attack on a Gulf country since the war with Iran started in March and an apparent escalation in the Houthis’ war with Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government that it sponsors.
Videos circulated on social media showing travellers walking through debris-strewn ground in the airport as sirens blared. Four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a US citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese were killed in the missile strike.
On Sunday, Saudi authorities extended the airport’s closure and said schools would be moved online until Thursday.
On Saturday night, the spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, said the coalition “will respond firmly” to the attack, offering little other details.
The Houthis doubled down on their threats on Sunday, warning airlines, passengers and staff to stay away from Saudi airports. The group said “the worst is yet to come” if Saudi military action in Yemen continued.
“We renew our warning to all airlines, experts, employees, workers and travellers against using Saudi airports and airspace, as they are vulnerable to attack and have become a theatre of operations for our forces,” the Houthis said in a statement on X.
Trump said he was evaluating whether the US would join the military campaign against the Houthis, saying on Saturday: “We’re gonna look at it.” He said he would speak to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, on Saturday night.
US involvement against the Houthis would be a further widening of the regional war that grew out of the US-Iran conflict, which so far has included fighting in Lebanon and Iraq.
The US has already been assisting with intelligence cooperation and targeting, with about ۲۰۰ US military advisers stationed in Saudi Arabia to assist with the campaign. Until now, the US has not directly taken part in fighting against the Houthis.
Direct US involvement could lead the group to resume its targeting of ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab strait, through which about ۱۰% of global maritime goods transit.
Saudi Arabia is already carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen. The group blamed the country for two airstrikes on Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, on Sunday. The Houthi government’s health ministry said coalition airstrikes over the last six weeks had killed ۹۱ Yemenis and wounded ۱۶۸, ۶۰% of whom it said were women and children.
Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen launched a campaign to push the Houthis back from the areas the group conquered over the last month. Despite claiming initial successes, the government forces have not been able to loosen the Houthis’ grip over areas closest to the Bab al-Mandab strait such as Perim Island.
The Egyptian woman killed in the attack on the airport was a flight attendant identified as Azza Ramzy, ۲۸, who worked for the Saudi airline Flynas, according to Egyptian state-run TV.
The Syrian woman was a widowed mother of four who had been living in Saudi Arabia for five years, a relative told the Associated Press. The Syrian embassy in Riyadh identified her as Buthaina Ahmad Oweida.
Her niece, Nisreen Oweida, said her aunt was ۵۶, from Syria’s northern Idlib province, and had left during the country’s civil war. She was living in Mecca and had been returning from a visit to her sister in Riyadh when she was killed, the niece said.
The airport attack was met with a wave of international condemnation, including from the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“Attacks by Iran’s proxies are pushing the region into a spiral of violence,” von der Leyen wrote on X. “They are destabilising crucial global transport and energy nodes.”
The increasing intensity of Houthi attacks against Riyadh and its energy infrastructure has brought more foreign involvement in the Yemen war. Governments are facing pressure over oil prices, already high from the US-Iran war since March.
On Monday, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey issued a joint statement saying they would move quickly to implement their mutual defence pact, including by speeding up the deployment of military forces in the kingdom.
The UK said it would assist with defensive military support of Riyadh, providing refuelling for aircraft working to intercept Houthi missiles into Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia has asked for further assistance from France, Egypt, the UK and Pakistan as its stock of interceptor missiles are running low.
The Houthis launched a military campaign to take Yemen’s Red Sea coast in early September after months of escalating tensions with the Yemeni government and its Saudi patron. The campaign interrupted years of relative calm in the country after a ۲۰۲۲ UN-brokered ceasefire froze frontlines between the Houthis and the government.
Despite the Saudi-supported counteroffensive, the group seems to have held on to its recent gains. It is unclear what further Saudi military action would look like against the Houthis, which resisted years of strikes by an international coalition, as well as by the US.
Saudi Arabia led an international coalition that intervened against the Houthis in Yemen in ۲۰۱۵ after the group took over Sana’a and toppled the Yemeni government. Recent Houthi attacks against Saudi energy infrastructure, as well as Houthi military advances, have pulled Saudi Arabia back into the Yemen war.
