Three Saudis killed in Houthi strikes on Riyadh airport as the Yemen war widens

Three Saudi nationals, including a pilot for the state carrier Saudia, were killed in two attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Thursday, the kingdom's General Authority of Civil Aviation said on Friday. The authority said the first strike hit airport facilities and the second struck a Saudia aircraft. Several people of other nationalities were injured. Air traffic later returned to normal.

Yemen's Houthi group said it had fired two ballistic missiles at the airport. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree added that the group had also targeted an airport in Najran, near the Saudi border with Yemen, and the Khamis Mushait air base further north. Saudi authorities did not confirm those two additional claims.

Saudia named one of the dead as Captain Hamoud Ali Alkalthami. The airline said he was among those killed in the incident at King Khalid. Philippine Airlines cancelled flights to Riyadh until at least 11 October. Saudia, Egyptair, IndiGo and Air India cancelled dozens of flights on Thursday. Tracking data from Flightradar24 showed a gradual resumption of movements on Friday, including services by some Middle Eastern carriers.

The deaths are the deadliest inside Saudi Arabia since the kingdom and allied Yemeni forces launched a major offensive against the Houthis last weekend. Earlier in the week the same civil aviation authority said three people had been killed in strikes on Abha International Airport and on King Khalid. Two female residents, one Moroccan and one Algerian, were killed at Abha and 28 wounded. One Sudanese national was killed at Riyadh in that earlier attack.

A Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognised government in Yemen said it had destroyed three Houthi missile launch platforms and warned it would respond firmly to attacks on civilians. The Houthis have encircled government forces in Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, and are trying to hold positions on the Red Sea coast against a Saudi-backed advance. UN figures put the number of people displaced in Yemen since July at more than 200,000.

The fighting is a direct spillover of the war between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other, which began with strikes on 28 February. The Houthis, who are aligned with Tehran, have used the conflict to expand their range of targets inside Saudi Arabia after years of relative quiet on the northern border. Thursday's strikes also came days before Riyadh was due to host a meeting of global oil executives, a gathering that depends on open air links and a sense that the capital is secure.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States would not attack Iran before the 3 November midterm elections and that talks with Tehran were productive. The blockade of Iranian ports remains in place. The combination of a US decision to pause direct strikes and an increase in Houthi attacks on Saudi airports leaves Riyadh carrying a larger share of the immediate military pressure.

Saudi civil aviation said operations had been interrupted for several hours at a time over recent days as incoming missiles made landing and take-off unsafe. The authority's statement on Friday was the first official confirmation of the Thursday death toll. It described the three dead as citizens and the injured as residents of various nationalities. No further names were released.

The practical effect is immediate for anyone trying to move through the capital by air. Flight cancellations by Asian and Middle Eastern carriers on Thursday reduced capacity into a city that handles tens of millions of passengers a year. The longer effect depends on whether the Houthis can keep the airport under threat and whether the Saudi-led coalition can suppress the launch sites that have already produced six deaths at Saudi airports this week.