Houthis claim new strike on Saudi airport after 3 killed

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group said today that it had attacked King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh with a ballistic missile.

The statement came hours after Saudi Arabia said a midweek attack on the same airport had killed one person, and two people in a separate attack on Abha International Airport.

There was no immediate confirmation from Saudi Arabia of the latest attack claim.

The Iran-backed Houthis have claimed a wave of attacks on Saudi civilian infrastructure in recent weeks, which came as Riyadh-backed forces pressed a counter-offensive against the group's territorial gains.

Since Yemen's civil war reignited in July, more than 200,000 people have been displaced within the country, the United Nations said yesterday.

Following today's claim of another attack on King Khalid International Airport, the Houthis repeated a warning - "for the last time" - to airlines to avoid Saudi airspace.

In a statement last night, Saudi Arabia's civil aviation authority said: "On Tuesday and Wednesday... Abha International Airport and King Khalid International Airport were subjected to attacks targeting their facilities."

An Egyptian and an Algerian national were killed at Abha airport, while a Sudanese national was killed at Riyadh airport, the agency said, adding that the attacks wounded 36 people.

The civil aviation authority did not specify which airport was hit when.

In a subsequent statement, the Saudi-led coalition - which backs Yemen's internationally recognised government in its fight against the group - directly blamed Houthi fighters for the strikes and vowed a response.

"The brutal attacks by the Terrorist Houthi Militia on civilian and civilian objects in the Kingdom, most recently targeting (the two airports) will not go unpunished," it wrote on X.

The coalition said it had retaliated by striking 82 "legitimate military targets", including missile facilities, command centres, communications systems and Houthi gathering sites.

Yemen's government declared a major counter-offensive against the Houthis this week, claiming to have pushed the fighters out of strategic areas on the Red Sea and the port city of Mocha.

But the Houthis insist they are holding their territory, and military sources have not reported any major changes on the ground.

Claims by the warring parties have been impossible to independently verify with the situation moving fast and access for journalists difficult.

Syria weighs military aid for Saudi Arabia

Syria is carefully considering providing military assistance to key ally Saudi Arabia amid the escalating war against the Houthis, a US official and a Syrian military official briefed on the matter said.

Options being considered include defensive aid to protect the kingdom from attacks, or deployment of forces in an offensive capacity to help Saudi-backed Yemeni troops fight the Houthis, the sources said.

The US official said Saudi Arabia had requested that Syria deploy forces to fight the Houthis - an assertion denied by the Syrian president's media adviser, Ahmad Zaidan, in a post on X following the publication of this story.

In response to a request for comment to the Syrian foreign ministry, a Syrian diplomat said Syria stood firmly with Saudi Arabia in the face of Houthi attacks but that the government's primary focus was on domestic priorities such as recovery from the country's civil war.

"Should Saudi Arabia request any military cooperation or exchange of expertise, this would take place exclusively through official channels and within the framework of the bilateral agreements governing relations between our two brotherly countries," the diplomat said in a statement.