Saudi authorities confirmed that a second consecutive day of attacks on Riyadh's international airport left one person dead and approximately eleven others with injuries, coming just hours after a separate strike — attributed to Yemen's Houthi movement, which operates with Iranian backing — had claimed 13 lives and sent more than 300 people to hospital.
A projectile of unconfirmed origin struck Terminal 4 at Riyadh's international airport on Sunday, setting off a fire, according to a statement from coalition forces operating in Yemen. A total of 11 people sustained injuries alongside the one person who lost their life, according to the Saudi civil aviation authority.
Coalition forces reported that air defence batteries intercepted a cruise missile on its approach to King Khalid International Airport. A subsequent statement from the same source noted that air-defence units had brought down a drone over the Eastern Province, while a ballistic missile aimed at Khamis Mushait was also stopped before reaching its target.
Alerts went out to residents of Abha, a city in the country's south, at the start of Monday, though Saudi Civil Defense subsequently confirmed the threat had lifted.
A series of drone and missile strikes has exposed vulnerabilities in the air-defence network protecting Saudi territory, arriving at a moment when the kingdom's military is running an aerial campaign over Yemen, where Houthi forces are advancing on the ground against the government Riyadh has backed.
Video broadcast by Saudi state television captured a queue of worshippers at an airport gate in Riyadh on Saturday, the travellers bound for the holiest destinations in Islam, as the attack unfolded around them. A burst of orange light drew people away from the area while portions of the roof gave way.
Authorities shuttered the airport in the aftermath of the attack, which represented the heaviest toll of violence the country had seen in over ten years. Speaking on television the following day, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree announced that his forces had carried out the previous day's attack, adding that the group had also directed strikes at Dammam's airport in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province along with two facilities belonging to the oil company Saudi Aramco.
Neither the Saudi government's media office nor Aramco provided any reply when approached for comment.
King Fahd International Airport in Dammam was confirmed by the civil aviation authority to have sustained a hit, with damage assessments and facility safety checks reported to be under way at that point. A traveller seated aboard a plane taxiing along the tarmac at the time described to a news outlet how, at around 8:30 p.m. local time — 1730 GMT — that Sunday, an object came down near the runway alongside several parked aircraft and set off a fire. The plane returned to the boarding gate, and those aboard stepped off and received instructions to vacate the area.
Data logged by Flightradar24 on Sunday pointed to a pattern of disrupted schedules — both inbound and outbound — at Dammam airport, which ranks third among the kingdom's busiest air hubs.
On that Sunday, the Houthi group renewed its travel notice covering Saudi airports, attributing responsibility for any interceptions that might fall short to Saudi Arabia and urging the public to treat its bulletins as reliable. The British embassy in Saudi Arabia published a notice on X calling on UK nationals to refrain from travelling to Jeddah, Dammam, and the kingdom's airports unless the journey was necessary, with Medina's airport listed as the sole exception. An advisory directed at domestic carriers called for heightened caution on routes passing through or above the kingdom's airspace.
Armed forces from Saudi Arabia have intensified their role in the Yemen conflict over the past month, conducting air strikes and throwing their weight behind a government-led ground push after Houthi fighters took hold of territory along the Red Sea coast. Houthi authorities reported Sunday that 124 air strikes attributed to Saudi Arabia had struck Yemeni territory over the preceding 24-hour period, with the movement's foreign ministry — operating through Al Masirah television — stating that unless the military campaign and outside involvement in Yemen's affairs were brought to a halt, further and more severe consequences would follow.
On Saturday, Trump indicated that the United States was weighing direct participation alongside Saudi Arabia in strikes against the Houthis, a conflict that has grown out of the broader hostilities between Iran and a US-Israeli military campaign that began in February. Writing via Telegram, Abbas Araqchi conveyed to his Saudi counterpart that Tehran stood prepared to support a path toward dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
The WPC Energy gathering — a five-day forum hosted by the international energy body of that name — got under way on Sunday at a convention centre roughly 10 kilometres from Riyadh's airport, with the Saudi energy ministry confirming the event had begun on schedule. The ministry's media advisory confirmed that a gathering of International Energy Forum ministers had taken place. No record was kept of which ministers were present at the meeting.
On Friday, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, the energy minister of co-host Italy, announced plans to attend by video link rather than in person. Arrangements were under way within the German government to secure a repatriation flight for economy minister Katherina Reiche. A planned Monday departure from Riyadh to Berlin was disrupted when the ministry indicated her flight had been unable to get airborne.
Riyadh's schools were directed to suspend face-to-face instruction and move to remote delivery for the period spanning Sunday through Thursday. A Sunday strike pushed the number of people killed in assaults on Riyadh's airport to 18 across the preceding seven days. Of the people killed in Saturday's attack, four held Saudi nationality while the others were citizens of other countries, according to Saudi authorities.
