{"id":2474,"date":"2026-10-11T09:03:46","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T04:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2474"},"modified":"2026-10-11T09:03:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T04:03:46","slug":"12-killed-309-wounded-in-fresh-attack-on-riyadh-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2474","title":{"rendered":"12 killed, 309 wounded in fresh attack on Riyadh airport"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The third attack this week on Riyadh\u2019s international airport on Saturday left at least 12 people dead and \u200bmore than 300 wounded, Saudi authorities said, as Iran-backed Houthis escalated the campaign they launched this summer against the kingdom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The dead included four Saudis, two \u200cpeople from Bangladesh and one person each from the US, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt, the Saudi civil aviation authority said.<\/p>\n

At the latest count, officials said, 309 were wounded.<\/p>\n

Hospitals were flooded with wounded brought by ambulance and helicopter, people briefed on the matter said. Some were in critical condition.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Saturday\u2019s attack, the deadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade, occurred without warning, with no alert issued by Saudi \u200bArabia\u2019s threat warning system.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s two previous attacks on King Khalid International Airport left four people dead and caused heavy damage to a Saudi commercial plane \u200bparked on the tarmac.<\/p>\n

The deadly strikes exposed vulnerabilities in the kingdom\u2019s defence capabilities as it wages an air campaign against the Houthis to \u2060support a ground war by the Yemeni government against the Iran-backed group.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n

\n <\/a>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A Saudi-led military coalition vowed to respond to the attack.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government have claimed hundreds \u200bof strikes on targets in Houthi-held territory.<\/p>\n

The Houthis have said these killed civilians, including women and children. Reuters could not independently verify those claims.<\/p>\n

All flights were diverted from Riyadh on \u200bSaturday, and operations at the airport that serves a city of roughly 8 million people were temporarily suspended, the Saudi civil aviation authority said.<\/p>\n

The head of the Houthi media office said in a post on X after the attack that the group had \u201cshut down Riyadh international airport\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Houthis have said airliners should avoid Saudi airspace, declaring it a zone of military operations after the Saudi-backed Yemeni government launched an \u200boffensive against the group on Monday.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n

\n <\/a>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

US President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters outside the White House, was asked whether Washington planned to join Saudi strikes on the Houthis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may. \u200bWe\u2019re going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so we\u2019ll make a decision. We move very quickly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attacks, saying \u200cthey \u201cdemonstrate a \u2060blatant disregard for innocent civilian life.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Eyewitness report explosion<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One eyewitness at the airport on Saturday reported seeing an explosion and then multiple people lying injured on the ground inside.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen ambulances were seen rushing towards the facility. A video verified by Reuters showed ambulances at the airport.<\/p>\n

An injured traveller told Reuters they saw something fly across the sky outside the airport before part of the ceiling near a departure gate collapsed.<\/p>\n

The US embassy in Riyadh said it was \u201caware of attacks\u201d and \u201cstrongly recommends all US citizens avoid this \u200bairport and surrounding areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia entered the Yemen \u200bwar in 2015 at the head \u2060of an Arab coalition to try to force the Houthis out of the Yemeni capital Sanaa.<\/p>\n

The Houthis had stormed Sanaa the previous year, pushing out government forces.<\/p>\n

The war was fought to a bloody stalemate, with hundreds of thousands of Yemenis killed by fighting and famine. \u200b<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia struck a 2022 deal with the Houthis, freezing the conflict.<\/p>\n

That ceasefire unravelled over the summer, culminating in a lightning Houthi \u200badvance that took the \u2060Red Sea chokepoint of Bab El Mandeb from Saudi-backed government forces.<\/p>\n

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government began an offensive this week to try to retake that territory, which has so far made slow gains, even as the Houthis put the country\u2019s third-largest city, Taiz, under siege.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Riyadh to host major summits<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Flight-tracking site flightradar24 showed all flights to Riyadh had either been diverted or cancelled, with only a \u2060helicopter hovering over \u200bthe airport at one point.<\/p>\n

Houthi attacks on Thursday and earlier in the week had already prompted a number \u200bof carriers to suspend or cancel services to the Saudi capital, shortly before Riyadh is due to host major energy and investment conferences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Organisers of those conferences said ahead of the strikes on Saturday they would go ahead as \u200bplanned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The third attack this week on Riyadh\u2019s international airport on Saturday left at least 12 people dead and \u200bmore than 300 wounded, Saudi authorities said, as Iran-backed Houthis escalated the campaign they launched this summer against the kingdom. The dead included four Saudis, two \u200cpeople from Bangladesh and one person each from the US, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt, the Saudi civil aviation authority said. At the latest count, officials said, 309 were wounded. Hospitals were flooded with wounded brought by ambulance and helicopter, people briefed on the matter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}