The deadliest strike on Saudi soil in more than a decade killed 12 people at Riyadh's international airport and wounded hundreds, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to vow on Sunday a decisive response against Yemen's Houthis. The coalition blamed the Iran-backed group for the strike on King Khalid International Airport, describing it as a "full-fledged war crime" that a diplomatic source attributed to a missile. Read moreAt least twelve killed, multiple people wounded in attack on Riyadh airport The attack came during an unprecedented wave of Houthi strikes on the kingdom since a truce in the group's long-running war with Yemen's Riyadh-backed government unravelled in July.
The spiralling violence has raised the possibility of a wider escalation, with US President Donald Trump signalling Washington could join military action against the fighters. To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading.
To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. One passenger told they witnessed a strike in the airport's domestic terminal. "I was on gate 403," the witness said.
"I saw 401 hit, I saw injured in front of my eyes. Everyone was running." Four Saudi citizens were among those killed in the attack, as well as two Bangladeshis, one US citizen, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian and one Sudanese, the kingdom's civil aviation authority said in a statement. Operations at the airport were suspended following the attack and authorities said damage assessments were ongoing.
The attack prompted health officials to activate a rare mass call-up of doctors to deal with the "serious emergency situation", a medical source said. Two doctors told that several pilgrims headed to Mecca were among the wounded. Schools in Riyadh switched to remote learning for the second time in a month.
Parents in the capital received emails Sunday seen by AFP, citing an order from the education ministry, saying "all schools in Riyadh will switch to distance learning for the entire week". "The cowardly terrorist attack by the Terrorist Houthi Militia... which resulted in deaths and injuries among civilian passengers and airport staff, constitutes a full-fledged war crime," coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Malki said in a statement on X. Earlier, the coalition said it had intercepted missiles targeting Saudi Arabia and destroyed launch platforms.
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