Houthis struck Riyadh airport 20 times in October, Saudi-led coalition says

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched 20 attacks on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport between October 1 and 11, including strikes that killed 17 people and wounded 333, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the rebels said Thursday.

Major General Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, said the attacks involved 10 drones, four ballistic missiles, four cruise missiles and two unidentified projectiles.

“The Houthi terrorist militias have worked to acquire advanced technologies with the help of regional parties, becoming the first terrorist group to possess ballistic missiles, attack and suicide drones, and fast boats,” al-Maliki said at a news conference in Riyadh.

Al-Maliki said the attacks on King Khalid International Airport, a civilian facility protected under international humanitarian law, took place on multiple days in October.

He said one person was killed and eight wounded on October 7, three were killed and five wounded on October 8, and 12 were killed and 309 wounded on October 10. Another attack on Terminal 3 on October 11 killed one person and wounded 11, bringing the total toll at the airport to 17 dead and 333 wounded, he said.

The spokesman said the Houthis had also attempted to target dozens of airports, oil facilities and ports in Saudi Arabia.

“The Houthi militia has also worked on building mountain storage facilities concentrated in Sanaa, Saada and Amran, from which attacks and terrorist assaults on Yemen and neighboring countries are launched,” al-Maliki said.

He said coalition forces had destroyed ballistic missile storage sites in the mountains around Sanaa, the Houthi-held Yemeni capital, along with 127 Houthi warehouses in mountainous areas and numerous launch platforms.

Elsewhere, an October 7 attack on Abha International Airport killed two people, a Moroccan and an Algerian national, and wounded 28, al-Maliki said.

A strike on October 5 at King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Jazan wounded three people, he said. Attacks on Najran airport on October 6 and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on October 10 and 11 caused no reported casualties, according to the coalition.