Three Saudis killed in two attacks at Riyadh airport, aviation authority says

Three Saudi citizens, including a Saudia pilot, were killed in two attacks at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday, the country’s civil aviation authority said. The Houthis claimed they had targeted the airport, but the authority did not identify who carried out the attacks. Flights were disrupted before the authority said air traffic had returned to normal.

What Saudi authorities said happened at Riyadh airport

The General Authority of Civil Aviation said the first attack targeted airport facilities and the second struck a Saudia aircraft, according to the Associated Press. The airline said the plane was on the ground, had no passengers aboard and was damaged. Saudia identified the pilot who died as Captain Hamoud Ali Alkalthami, AP reported.

The authority said Saudi citizens and residents of several nationalities were injured, the BBC reported. AP said the injuries ranged from minor to serious. Neither report supplied a confirmed total for those injured in Thursday’s attacks, so the three reported deaths should not be read as the full casualty count.

Saudi Arabia’s aviation authority said air traffic at the airport had returned to normal, according to the BBC. That statement describes the airport’s operating status; it does not mean every airline had restored its own service or that passengers whose flights were cancelled could travel as planned.

How the attacks disrupted flights

The US Embassy had warned its citizens on Wednesday about potential airspace closures, AP reported. Travellers affected by the attacks therefore face separate questions about airport operations, their airline’s schedule and any restrictions on routes. The available reporting establishes the cancellations and the stated suspensions, but does not give a total number of stranded passengers.

What the Houthis claimed, and what remains unverified

The Houthis said on Thursday that they attacked Riyadh airport with two missiles, according to the BBC. AP reported that the Saudi aviation authority’s statement did not name a perpetrator. The casualty and damage accounts come from Saudi authorities and Saudia, while the assertion of responsibility comes from the Houthis; the available reporting does not independently establish who launched the strikes.

The Houthis also claimed attacks on an airport in Najran and an airbase in Khamis Mushait, the BBC reported. Saudi Arabia had not confirmed those additional attacks in the BBC’s account. They should therefore be treated separately from the authority’s account of the two strikes at King Khalid International Airport.

How the Riyadh attacks fit into the renewed Yemen fighting

Thursday’s deaths followed earlier attacks on Saudi airports. In Wednesday’s attacks at Abha International Airport and King Khalid International Airport, Saudi officials reported three deaths in total, AP reported. The BBC said two people were killed and 28 wounded at Abha, while one person was killed at the Riyadh airport. Those were earlier casualties, separate from the three deaths reported after Thursday’s attacks.

The Houthis have said their airport attacks are a response to Saudi Arabia’s support for Yemeni government forces, the BBC reported. The group controls most of Yemen’s north-west. A temporary ceasefire brokered in 2022 began to unravel in July, according to the BBC, after years of fighting and air strikes that killed hundreds of thousands of people and contributed to a severe humanitarian crisis.

AP described Thursday’s strikes as the deadliest in Saudi Arabia since the kingdom and allied forces began a major offensive against the Houthis the previous weekend. It reported that the offensive aims to retake territory seized by the Houthis along Yemen’s western Red Sea coast and near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, an important shipping passage. Claims about the course of that fighting do not resolve who carried out the airport strikes.

For passengers, the immediate confirmed change is the airport authority’s statement that air traffic had resumed, alongside the airline suspensions reported by AP. For investigators, the central unanswered question remains responsibility for the two attacks. The civil aviation authority’s account confirms the deaths and identifies the targets, while the Houthi claim has not been independently verified in the available reporting.