{"id":928516,"date":"2026-10-11T03:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T03:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/928516\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T03:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T03:08:12","slug":"saudi-led-coalition-vows-retaliation-after-deadly-houthi-attack-on-riyadh-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/928516\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi-led coalition vows retaliation after deadly Houthi attack on Riyadh airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

The third attack this week on Riyadh’s international airport on Saturday left at least 12 people dead and more than 300 \u200cwounded, Saudi authorities said, as Yemen’s Houthis escalated the campaign they launched this summer against the kingdom.<\/p>\n

The dead included four Saudis, two people from Bangladesh and one person each from the U.S., Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt, the Saudi civil aviation authority said. 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

Saturday’s attack, the \u200bdeadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade, occurred without warning, with no alert issued \u200bby Saudi Arabia’s threat warning system. This week’s two previous attacks on King Khalid International Airport left four people dead and caused heavy damage to a Saudi commercial plane parked on the tarmac.<\/p>\n

The deadly strikes exposed vulnerabilities in the kingdom’s defence capabilities as it wages an \u200bair campaign against the Houthis to support a ground war by the Yemeni government against the Iran-backed group.<\/p>\n

\"Smoke<\/p>\n

This image from video, obtained and verified by Reuters, shows thick black smoke and flames rising from a fire at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Thursday. It was attacked again on Saturday. (Reuters)<\/p>\n

A Saudi-led military coalition vowed \u2060to respond to the attack.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia and the \u2060Yemeni government have claimed hundreds of strikes on targets in Houthi-held territory. The Houthis have \u200csaid these killed civilians including women and children. Reuters could not independently verify those claims.<\/p>\n

All flights were diverted from Riyadh on Saturday, 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 “shut down Riyadh international airport.” The Houthis have said airliners should avoid \u2060Saudi airspace, declaring it a zone of military operations after the Saudi-backed Yemeni government launched an offensive against the group on Monday.<\/p>\n

WATCH | How the Houthis could further disrupt global trade:\"\"<\/p>\n

How Yemen\u2019s Houthis could supercharge global trade disruptions<\/p>\n

Houthi rebels have taken control of Yemen\u2019s Red Sea coastline and the strategic strait of Bab al-Mandeb, threatening to further destabilize global trade. For The National, CBC\u2019s Margaret Evans breaks down the militia\u2019s gains and how it could offer Iran more leverage in its war with the U.S.<\/p>\n

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

“We may. We’re going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so \u200cwe’ll make a decision. We move very quickly,” he said.<\/p>\n

One eyewitness at the airport on Saturday reported seeing an explosion and then multiple people lying injured on the ground inside. 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 \u200bdeparture gate collapsed.<\/p>\n

The U.S. embassy in Riyadh said it was “aware of attacks” and “strongly recommends all U.S. citizens avoid this airport and surrounding areas.”<\/p>\n

The Canadian Embassy in Saudi Arabia published a statement advising Canadians to avoid all travel to King Khalid International Airport due to the security situation.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia entered the Yemen war in 2015 at the head of an Arab coalition \u2060to try to force the Houthis out of the Yemeni capital Sanaa. The Houthis had stormed Sanaa the previous year, pushing out government forces.<\/p>\n

The war was fought to \u2060a bloody stalemate, with hundreds of thousands of Yemenis killed by fighting and famine. Saudi Arabia struck a 2022 deal with the Houthis, freezing the conflict.<\/p>\n

That \u2060ceasefire unravelled \u2060over the summer, culminating in a lightning Houthi advance that took \u200bthe Red Sea chokepoint of Bab el-Mandeb from Saudi-backed government forces.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Houthis expand control in Bab el-Mandeb:\"\"<\/p>\n

Houthi rebel control expands over key oil shipping lane<\/p>\n

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen are expanding their control over a key Middle Eastern shipping route, adding further pressure to global oil supplies and prices.<\/p>\n

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government began an offensive this week to try to retake that territory, which has so far \u200bmade slow gains, even as the Houthis put \u2060the country’s third-largest city, Taiz, under siege.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

Organizers of those conferences said ahead of the strikes on Saturday they would go ahead as planned. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":928517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-928516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}