Riyadh airport attacks signal major Iran war escalation

CAIRO (AP) — A Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said a projectile struck a passenger terminal at the international airport in Riyadh on Sunday, less than a day after a missile struck it and killed 12 people.

There were no immediate details about the latest strike, which hit the same complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights.

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The sharp escalation in the new front in the Iran war threatens to draw in greater U.S. military involvement as President Donald Trump has said he is weighing joining the fight against the rebels.

The strike came shortly after the Houthis said the airport under their control in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa had been struck again. They blamed the Saudis but provided no details.

Saturday’s missile attack on the Riyadh international airport was the deadliest in a Gulf Arab nation since the Iran war began. Over 300 people were wounded, some of them critically.

The strike on Sunday occurred as King Khalid International Airport remained closed and authorities moved schools in the capital online.

At stake, again, are global supplies and prices of oil as well as commercial shipping through a crucial alternative waterway to the Iran-threatened Strait of Hormuz — along with civilians and aviation throughout the region.

President Donald Trump speaks as he meets Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Trump says he is weighing joining strikes against rebels

Trump on Saturday said he was considering whether to join Saudi strikes against the rebels. He later said he planned to speak with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

U.S. intervention could prompt the Houthis to halt shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea off Yemen and further restrict the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia is running low on missile interceptors and has asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt to deploy air defence support to the region, regional officials told The Associated Press last month, with one noting that the U.S. has seen its own stock dwindle during the war with Iran.

Meanwhile, deeper U.S. involvement in an unpopular regional war could further threaten Trump’s Republican party in upcoming midterm elections. Both Trump and Iran insist the American election calendar has no effect on their decisions on how to end the seven-month-old conflict.

Houthis have targeted Saudi air, military and oil facilities

As the Riyadh airport remained closed until at least 9 p.m. Sunday, according to Flightradar24, fighting continued in Yemen.

Earlier Sunday, the Houthi-run health ministry said a child was killed and six people wounded in a suspected Saudi airstrike on a house in Sanaa. The ministry also said 91 Yemenis have been killed by the Saudi-led coalition in five weeks, 60 per cent of them women and children.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi authorities on the claims.

And there remained no claim of responsibility for the Saturday attack on Riyadh airport, though the Houthis at times have kept silent when an attack brought widespread international condemnation.

But the rebels have acknowledged targeting Saudi airports and oil installations in recent days, and on Sunday they again warned “all airlines, experts, employees, workers and travellers against using Saudi airports and airspace, as they are vulnerable to attack and have become a theatre of operations for our forces.”

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the group’s military spokesperson, wrote on X that airports in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina were exempt.

The missile on Saturday struck an airport complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights, a regional official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.

A Saudi statement said the dead included four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a U.S. citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese.

The Egyptian woman was a flight attendant identified as Azza Ramzy, who worked for Saudi airline Flynas, according to Egyptian state-run TV.

The Syrian woman was a widowed mother of four who had been living in Saudi Arabia for five years, a relative told The Associated Press. The Syrian Embassy identified her as Buthaina Ahmad Oweida. Her niece, Nisreen Oweida, said she had left during Syria’s civil war. She was living in Mecca and had been returning from a visit to her sister in Riyadh when she was killed.

The Houthis claimed attacks earlier in the week on King Khalid International Airport that killed three Saudis, including a pilot, and a Sudanese national. The airport has no military facilities.

Iran can use the Houthis to pressure a key U.S. ally

Until recently, the Houthis had been largely on the sidelines of the Iran war. Now, the rebels are helping Iran to pressure a key U.S. ally.

The Saudis and the Houthis began fighting in 2015, when the kingdom entered Yemen’s civil war on behalf of the internationally recognized government.

Relative calm after a 2022 ceasefire ended in July, when the Houthis resumed attacks, saying the Saudis fired on the Sanaa airport as a plane from Iran was trying to land. That revived anger over the Saudi-led blockade that has largely isolated Houthi-run areas.

Now fighting has escalated, with the Saudi-led coalition providing air support for Yemeni government forces attempting to reverse recent Houthi gains along the Red Sea.

Those gains gave the rebels better surveillance of shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb, a corridor that is a crucial alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has been attacking ships.

But Ahmed Nagi, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Yemen, said the Houthi pressure tactics could backfire. “Rather than pushing Riyadh to step back, attacks on critical Saudi infrastructure could make the Saudis more determined to continue the campaign,” he said.

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