Saudi Arabia: Three killed in Houthi attacks on airports

Egyptian, Algerian and Sudanese nationals died and 36 others were injured, some seriously, according to the Saudi General Directorate of Civil Aviation, which also reported material damage.

Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday that three people were killed in Houthi attacks on its airports, as Riyadh attempts to counter the pro-Iranian fighters in Yemen, where hostilities have displaced more than 200,000 people. The Houthis had earlier claimed responsibility for missile and drone attacks on Riyadh's international airport and the airport in Abha, in the southwest of the kingdom.

Egyptian, Algerian and Sudanese nationals died and 36 others were injured, some seriously, according to the Saudi General Directorate of Civil Aviation, which also reported material damage.

Riyadh, for its part, asserted early Thursday, via a statement from its military coalition, that these attacks would not go "unpunished" and announced that it had destroyed "82 legitimate Houthi military targets" in retaliation.

Saudi skies "not safe"

The coalition had previously indicated that it had "destroyed the ballistic missile launch site" used to carry out the attack on Riyadh airport. Air traffic there has been regularly disrupted for several days, according to the Flightradar24 tracking website, as the Houthis have warned airlines that Saudi airspace is "not safe."

The conflict between these fighters, who have controlled the Yemeni capital Sana'a and large swathes of the country for over a decade, and the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia, reignited in July after years of relative calm, becoming the new front in the Middle East war. Since then, 201,217 people have been forced to flee their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which is alarmed by the lack of funding needed to address this new humanitarian crisis in the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.

In September, a lightning offensive by the Houthis allowed them to seize control of the entire Yemeni coastline along the Red Sea and strengthen their hold on the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal. Government forces, supported by Saudi warplanes, launched a counter-offensive last weekend, claiming "victories on several fronts." But the Houthis deny these advances, and military sources from both sides interviewed by AFP reported no major developments on the ground. The positions of each side are difficult to determine independently in areas inaccessible to journalists.

International support

New clashes in western Yemen left at least 62 people dead on Wednesday, according to military sources on both sides, bringing the number of fighters killed since Monday to over 330. Riyadh continued its nighttime bombardment of several areas held by the Houthis, including the capital Sanaa, according to the Houthis, who reported "1,642 Saudi airstrikes and missile attacks over the past three months." The Houthis attacked a military base near Aden airport in southern Yemen, where the government retreated in 2015 at the start of the conflict. According to the Ministry of Transport, a missile landed near the runway minutes before the arrival of a Yemeni airline flight from Cairo, which was diverted to a Saudi airport.

The state-run Saba news agency also reported an airstrike on the major city of Taiz, held by government forces but partially surrounded by Houthis, which wounded five civilians. "We went out into the street (...) and saw young people who had been hit. The projectile landed right in the middle of the street, at a time when the neighborhood was crowded," a resident, Al-Fateh al-Eisaei, told AFP.

Struggling to repel Houthi attacks in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Riyadh and its allies have repeatedly called for international support in recent weeks, particularly from the United States, so far without success. Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have agreed to move "immediately to the implementation" of a defense agreement signed in Mecca in August. On Monday, they announced their intention to "provide the agreed-upon forces and military resources and deploy them rapidly in the kingdom." The conflict continues to severely disrupt Saudi oil—Riyadh is the world's leading crude oil exporter—with regular Houthi attacks on the kingdom's refineries and the Saudi fleet in the Red Sea.