A Houthi missile attack rocked Riyadh international airport Saturday, shutting down the facility and sending dozens of Saudi civilians to the hospital — as President Trump warned the US “may” join the Kingdom in responding to the strikes.
Several people were seen lying injured on the ground inside the airport, with blood stains covering the floor.
Residents heard at least two loud blasts that shock the capital, as plumes of black smoke emanated from the airport, and more than a dozen ambulances raced through.
Saturday’s was the third attack on the Saudi airport this week. AP
“Everyone was running,” a witness told Agence France Presse as the airport was being evacuated.
The attack on a passenger terminal at King Khalid Airport was caused by the Iranian-backed Houthis, a diplomatic source told the news agency.
Five people remain in intensive care following the strikes, with “dozens” more wounded, according to a source at King Fahad hospital.
An Iraqi pro-militia outlet put the number of people injured at 45.
It took in around 50 injured people, as Riyadh’s big hospitals activated their disaster code, a person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.
Asked Saturday if Washington would provide military support to Saudi Arabia in retaliating against the continued offensives from the terror group, Trump left the door open.
“We may,” he told reporters. “We’re going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.”
The Saudi Civil Aviation Authority confirmed the strikes, saying it resulted in “a number of injuries” and announced the temporary suspension of flights.
Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen have renewed fighting with Yemen and the Saudi government that backs it. HANDOUT/EPA/Shutterstock
“This attack comes amid the ongoing blatant attacks targeting civil aviation facilities in the kingdom,” it wrote in a statement on X.
All flights to Riyadh were either diverted or cancelled, with airlines including Kuwait Airways, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways shuttering travel between their respective hubs and the Saudi Arabia capital into Monday.
Nearly 300 flights were cancelled Saturday, according to flight tracking sites.
Four people, including a Saudi pilot, were killed in two other Houthi strikes on the airport this week in an unprecedented barrage on the Kingdom that has opened a new front in the war in Iran.
Nearly 300 flights were cancelled at Riyadh international airport Saturday after a Houthi missile strike. AFP via Getty Images
It also comes during a marked escalation in renewed fighting between Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces and the Houthi terrorists.
The Yemen-based Houthis — one of Tehran’s proxy groups — have renewed hostilities with Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen’s government, after the rebels seized key stretches of the Red Sea coast — adding to the turmoil rattling already-shaken oil markets.
Meanwhile, Yemeni government forces said they had driven the Houthis from the strategic Bab el Mandeb Strait as they pushed to reclaim Red Sea coastal territory — a claim the rebels denied.
“The Bab al-Mandeb has been cleansed of the remnants of the terrorist Houthi militia,” Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Yemen, Mohammad Al-Jaber, wrote on X Friday.