Major Houthi attack leaves dozens injured at Riyadh airport; West issues travel warning

Yemen's Houthis attacked Riyadh's international airport with a missile on Saturday, a diplomatic source told AFP, with dozens reported wounded and a witness describing “major panic” in the terminal.

One witness reported hearing an explosion while waiting to board a flight, and another said they saw a strike that left people wounded.

Doctors are being called to hospitals across Riyadh for a “serious emergency situation,” a medical source told AFP, while Reuters reported that more than a dozen ambulances were seen rushing to the airport.

Saudi Arabia has been tightly controlling public information about Houthi attacks on its soil in recent weeks, leaving media and residents unclear as to the danger.

After Saturday’s attack, the Riyadh airport urged passengers to contact their airlines directly and check their flight status before heading there.

The US, UK, Canadian, German and Spanish embassies in Saudi Arabia warned their citizens to avoid Riyadh's international airport after the attack.

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Flight-tracking site flightradar24 showed all flights to Riyadh had either been diverted or cancelled, with only a helicopter hovering over the airport at one point.

The Saudi government's media office and the Saudi civil aviation authority did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident, amid a controlled state media campaign.

Riyadh is due to host two major energy and investment conferences this month. Organisers of those conferences said on Saturday they would go ahead as planned, and they sought to reassure attendees of their security.

Saturday's incident comes amid an escalation of missile strikes by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on the kingdom. The airport has already been attacked twice this week, leaving four people dead and others wounded, and badly damaging an aircraft.

The Houthis have opened a new front in the Middle East war in which the United States and its ally Israel are arrayed against Iran.

Saudi Arabia supports Yemen's internationally recognised government and has been providing military support for its fight against the Houthis.

‘Everyone was running’

"I was on gate 403" at the domestic terminal, a witness told AFP following Saturday’s attack.

"I saw 401 hit, I saw injured in front of my eyes. Everyone was running."

A source at a local hospital told AFP that five people were in intensive care after being wounded at the airport, saying "dozens of people were injured" in all.

The relative of one injured person said they had been wounded in the shoulders and arms by shattered glass, and had been taken to hospital.

Three witnesses confirmed people being evacuated from the airport.

"Houthis are attacking civilian targets. Riyadh airport is a civilian target," the diplomatic source told AFP, saying the airport was hit by "a missile around 3:00 pm" (1200 GMT).

The airport was hit by deadly attacks claimed by Yemen's Houthis on Thursday, though the Iran-backed group did not announce any fresh strikes on the facility on Saturday.

The Houthis have repeatedly attacked Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers after a truce in their long-running war with Yemen's Riyadh-backed government unravelled in July.

Admissions by Saudi authorities of strikes hitting civilian targets are relatively rare, with officials issuing few statements on Houthi attacks in recent weeks.

The scale and frequency of the recent strikes targeting Riyadh are unprecedented in the eight months of war that has spread across the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia leads an international coalition that supports Yemen's government militarily, and has found itself drawn deeper into its impoverished neighbour's civil war.

Both Riyadh and the Houthis have signalling a willingness to keep fighting rather than pursue diplomacy.

Meanwhile, in Yemen, Saudi-supported government forces were advancing against the Houthis in areas they captured last month around the Bab al-Mandab strait, military sources told AFP.

The Yemeni government last week announced a counter-offensive aimed at retaking all areas held by the Houthis, after the group seized the country's entire western coastline in a lightning offensive.

The Houthis confirmed that government forces had attacked in the Bab al-Mandab area -- a key chokepoint for Red Sea oil and cargo shipping -- but they claimed to have repelled the assault.

Claims by the warring parties have been impossible to independently verify, with the situation moving fast on the ground and access for journalists difficult.

Western advisory

Spain's embassy, in a message on X, alerted nationals to a "new attack" by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis on the airport, where witnesses earlier told AFP an evacuation was ordered.

A diplomatic source separately told AFP that the Houthis had hit the airport with a missile around 1200 GMT.

Canada's embassy said only that unspecified "ongoing military activity" was affecting Riyadh's international airport, while Germany's mission alluded only to "the current situation".

France's embassy on Friday urged French nationals to take "utmost care" in Saudi Arabia because of "strikes in recent days by the Houthis". It also warned French citizens not to record images of zones that were hit, nor share any online.