Three people died in Thursday’s attacks on Riyadh airport, and several others were injured, Saudi authorities said Friday, as the Houthi group stepped up missile strikes on Saudi Arabia. The attack damaged a Saudia Airlines plane, sent smoke over the airport and led airlines to cancel flights to the Saudi capital.
One person killed was a Saudia Airlines employee, the carrier said. Saudi civil aviation authorities reported that air traffic had returned to normal. Flightradar24 showed flights gradually resuming, including services operated by some Middle Eastern airlines.
Airstrikes and counteroffensive
Saudi Arabia struck Houthi targets in Sanaa overnight, according to Houthi officials and affiliated media. The airstrikes came as Saudi forces and their allies tried to reverse the group’s recent territorial gains, while the Houthis continued attacks on the kingdom and threats to international shipping.
A Saudi-led coalition supporting government forces in Yemen said it had destroyed three Houthi missile launch platforms. The coalition warned that it would respond firmly to attacks on civilians. Reuters reported that the statement came after the Houthis had already killed three people in strikes on airports in the kingdom earlier in the week.
The fighting now stretches across Yemen. Houthi forces have encircled government forces in Taiz, the country’s third-largest city, while defending positions on the Red Sea coast against a Saudi-backed offensive. The group has announced repeated rounds of ballistic missile fire at Saudi Arabia, said it would shut Saudi airspace and warned workers at oil facilities that it would strike them.
Last month, Houthi forces advanced down Yemen’s Red Sea coast and took full control of the coastline around the strait. Saudi Arabia then re-entered the long-dormant conflict and backed a government counteroffensive. On Monday, government forces retook territory around the Bab el-Mandeb coastline after intense Saudi airstrikes. Fighting continued there.
A wider regional war
Houthi forces have also cut a key road connecting Taiz through advances in mountain districts. The city has more than half a million people and a garrison of thousands of pro-government fighters.
Yemen’s civil war has become the fiercest front in a wider regional conflict triggered by the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran, which began February 28. The fighting carries implications for global energy markets. The Houthis have fired on shipping in the Red Sea and at its southern gateway, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, while Iran has partly blocked the Strait of Hormuz, further squeezing Gulf oil supplies.
Saudi Arabia seeks support
Saudi Arabia is seeking assistance from Pakistan and Turkey, its partners in a mutual defence pact, to help ward off Houthi attacks. It has also asked allies more broadly to help reverse the group’s gains inside Yemen.
The attack disrupted flights. Saudi Arabia’s capital was due to host a major meeting of global oil chiefs days later. Saudi authorities said airport traffic had returned to normal, but the attacks and airstrikes formed part of an intensifying conflict spanning Yemen, Saudi Arabia and regional shipping routes.