Saudi Arabia faces fresh drone and missile threat after deadly airport strikes

• Saudi Arabia faced new drone and cruise missile threats on Oct 12 after deadly Houthi strikes hit Riyadh airport and killed at least 14 people, with 300-plus wounded.
• The kingdom extended the Riyadh airport shutdown, while air traffic stayed low and the World Petroleum Congress was disrupted as major oil executives pulled out.
• Officials vowed a strong response, but analysts said Saudi air defences cannot stop all attacks; the violence has raised fears of wider war and more damage.

RIYADH – Saudi Arabia dealt with new drone and cruise missile attacks on Oct 12, posing fresh security threats to the kingdom following the weekend’s deadly strikes on its capital’s airport.

“We have detected and are monitoring a threat involving drones and cruise missiles against the kingdom and the threat is being dealt with,” the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. It cited defence ministry spokesman Turki al-Maliki on behalf of a Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis.

The Saudi authorities extended on Oct 12 a suspension of operations at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, where two separate attacks over the weekend killed at least 14 people and wounded more than 300, many critically. King Fahd International Airport in Dammam was targeted separately.

The skies over Riyadh were virtually empty on Oct 12.

The airport in Riyadh cancelled 99.7% of all scheduled flights on Oct 11, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. An air traffic tracker from Flightradar24 showed planes avoiding the city on Oct 12, though jets were crossing Saudi airspace and landing at top hub Jeddah on the country’s west coast.

As the violence stretched into Oct 12, Saudi-led forces in Yemen vowed a “decisive” response.

Against that backdrop, Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman, one of the most senior Saudi officials to speak publicly in the wake of the strikes, sought to project resilience, telling oil industry executives that the kingdom remained committed to providing energy security.

“There is no way that somebody will break our back. We are like a phoenix. We come out of the ashes all the time and every time,” Prince Abdulaziz said at an energy event on Oct 11.

At the World Petroleum Congress (WPC) on Oct 12, he called for a serious response to events of recent weeks, while noting that Saudi Arabia should remain focused on economic diversification and investment. The gathering itself has been disrupted by the hostilities, with some executives who had been scheduled to attend, including the chief executives of BP and Shell, withdrawing.

The Houthi attacks over the weekend marked a sharp escalation in the Yemen war, where Saudi Arabia has long supported the internationally recognised government.

On Oct 11, a strike hit Riyadh’s international airport, killing one person, just hours after another Houthi-claimed attack on the site killed 13 people and left hundreds of others wounded, forcing operations there to be suspended.

The attacks on Saudi Arabia, a regional powerhouse and the world’s top oil exporter which has poured billions of dollars into its military, were the deadliest to hit the kingdom in a decade.

‘Full-fledged war crime’

Although Saudi Arabia has poured billions into its military, Houthi attacks continue to slip through.

“Saudi air defences have been able to intercept some Houthi missile and drone attacks, but Saudi Arabia is so large that it’s simply impossible for them to consistently defend themselves,” said Thomas Juneau, security analyst at Ottawa University.

Houthi media reported two Saudi strikes in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Sanaa governorate on Oct 11.

A spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry said on X that one of the strikes killed a civilian and wounded five others.

The Oct 10 attack on Riyadh drew condemnation from the United Nations and leaders around the world, including US President Donald Trump, who said he was considering joining Saudi strikes against the Houthis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country does not have diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, also denounced the “horrific terrorist attack”.

Iran, which backs the Houthis, said on Oct 12 it was “deeply concerned” over the escalation.

Four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshis, one American, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian and one Sudanese were killed, the civil aviation authority said, with 309 people wounded.

The Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia also said one of its citizens died on Oct 11 after being wounded the day before.

Chaos

Witnesses to the Oct 10 strike described chaos in the aftermath.

“Some had lost a hand or an arm. People were running while carrying injured people, covered in blood,” a 32-year-old Riyadh resident told AFP.

The US, Canadian, German and Spanish embassies in Saudi Arabia have warned their citizens to avoid Riyadh airport.

Saudi Arabia leads an international coalition that has supported Yemen’s government militarily since 2015, including by seeking to exert control over Yemeni airspace and the airport in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa.

Ottawa University’s Juneau said the Houthis now “want to do to Saudi Arabia what Saudi Arabia does to them”.

On the ground in Yemen, Saudi-supported government forces were advancing in their counter-offensive against the Houthis around the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a key shipping route, military sources said on Oct 10. The Houthis claimed to have repelled them.

Claims by both sides have been impossible to independently verify, with the situation moving fast on the ground and access for journalists difficult. BLOOMBERG, AFP