Riyadh airport hit again as death toll from Saturday's Houthi strike rises to 13

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh was hit again on Sunday 11 October, a day after an attack there killed at least 12 people and wounded at least 309. TRT World reported that the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi movement said an unidentified projectile struck Terminal 4 of the airport and started a fire. The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), Saudi Arabia’s aviation regulator, said the attack on Sunday afternoon injured people.

GACA said it was assessing the damage and checking that airport facilities were safe, working with the relevant authorities. According to TRT World, it gave no number of injured and did not say how badly they were hurt. Kai Times could not establish how many people were injured on Sunday.

Death toll rises to 13

The death toll from Saturday’s attack rose to 13 on Sunday when an Indian national died of his injuries, the Embassy of India said. In a statement on Facebook, the embassy said the man, who was injured in the 10 October attack, “has unfortunately lost his life today”.

GACA had said the dead from Saturday included four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshis and one person each from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt. It said some of the at least 309 wounded were in critical condition. Saturday’s strike was the third Houthi attack on the airport that week. According to GACA figures reported by Al Jazeera, the attacks on Thursday killed at least three Saudi citizens, including a pilot.

Houthi claims

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Sunday that the group “carried out four qualitative operations in the past 24 hours using ballistic and cruise missiles and drones”. He said the group hit Riyadh airport several times and also targeted King Fahd International Airport in Dammam and two facilities of the state oil company Saudi Aramco. None of the sources Kai Times reviewed contained Saudi confirmation of damage at Aramco sites. On Saturday, coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Malki said in a post on X that “a projectile fell in the vicinity of King Fahd International Airport in Dammam”.

The Houthis have declared Saudi airspace a zone of military operations. They say any aircraft there is a target, except over Mecca and Medina. The declaration came after Yemen’s internationally recognised government launched an offensive against the group on Monday. The head of the Houthi media office said on X after Saturday’s attack that the group had “shut down Riyadh international airport”.

Saudi response and reactions

The coalition called Saturday’s attack a “full-fledged war crime”. Al-Malki said the coalition would “respond decisively to this terrorist attack in accordance with the Customary International Humanitarian Law”. On 8 October, after earlier attacks on the Riyadh airport and Abha International Airport, he issued a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency, the state news agency. It said coalition forces had destroyed 82 Houthi military targets in the governorates of Saada, Al-Hudaydah, Al-Jawf and Marib, including 11 mountain-based ballistic missile storage sites in Saada.

Al Jazeera reported that US President Donald Trump called Saturday’s attack “terrible” and said he was evaluating whether the United States should join the war against the Houthis. Qatar said it considered the attack “a direct threat to the security of the region”. Egypt, Jordan and Oman expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia. According to TRT World, the US, Canadian, German and Spanish embassies told their citizens to avoid the airport, and Australia told its citizens to “shelter in place”.

The sources Kai Times reviewed did not say when or how the coalition would respond to the weekend’s attacks. Kai Times could not check the casualty figures, the Indian embassy’s statement or the Houthi claims against primary sources. They come from reports by Al Jazeera and TRT World.