Saudi Arabia authorities said on Wednesday that three people were killed in attacks on two of the kingdom’s international airports, including in the capital Riyadh, after Yemen’s Houthis claimed to have fired on both transport hubs.
The Iran-backed fighters earlier took responsibility for a flurry of attacks that included firing a ballistic missile at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport as the conflict deepens with Saudi Arabia, which backs Yemen’s government.
“On Tuesday and Wednesday, Abha International Airport and King Khalid International Airport were subjected to attacks targeting their facilities,” the kingdom’s civil aviation authority said in a statement.
An Egyptian and an Algerian national were killed at Abha airport and a Sudanese national was killed at the airport in Riyadh, the agency said, with 36 people wounded in the attacks.
The Saudi-led military coalition that backs pro-government forces in Yemen said on X that it “destroyed the ballistic missile launch platform” used in the attack on Riyadh.
In a subsequent statement, the coalition directly blamed Houthi forces and said it would retaliate.
“The brutal attacks by the Terrorist Houthi Militia on civilian and civilian objects in the Kingdom, most recently targeting (the two airports) will not go unpunished,” it said on X.
The coalition said as a result it struck and destroyed 82 “legitimate military targets,” including Houthi mountain-based ballistic missile facilities, command-and-control centers, communication systems and Houthi gathering sites.
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The Yemeni group, which controls most of the country’s northwest, is battling for territory against the Saudi-backed forces after the civil war reignited in July and it captured swathes of coastal land.
The fighting has displaced more than 200,000 people within the country, the United Nations said Wednesday.
Yemen’s internationally recognised government this week declared a major counter-offensive and claims to have pushed Houthi fighters out of strategic areas on the Red Sea and the port city of Mocha.
But the Iran-backed Houthis say they are holding their territory, and military sources from both sides contacted by AFP have not reported any major changes on the ground.
Claims by the warring parties have been impossible to independently verify with the situation moving fast and access for journalists difficult.
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