One killed, 11 injured in second Houthi strike on Riyadh airport in two days

One person has been killed and 11 injured in a second strike on the international airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh, officials have said.

A Saudi military spokesman said a projectile had hit King Khalid International Airport on Sunday, causing a fire in a passenger hall. Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said in a statement on X that one person, a Pakistani resident, had been killed in the attack.

It comes a day after a strike on the same airport killed 13 people and injured 308 others. There have been a series of other attacks earlier in the week.

The Houthis in Yemen said they were behind them and warned airlines and passengers against using Saudi Arabian airports and airspace.

The group said they had targeted the airport with a mix of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones in the past 24 hours.

They also attacked oil facilities and Dammam airport in eastern Saudi Arabia, their military spokesman Brig Gen Yahya Saree said.

He vowed to continue the “escalating operations deep inside Saudi Arabia”, warning that all Saudi airports were potential targets apart from those in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

The Houthis have said they are targeting Saudi Arabia over its support for government forces in Yemen’s civil war, as well as an air strike on the airport in Sanaa.

On Sunday Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition, said air defences had intercepted a missile near the airport in Riyadh, while authorities were dealing with the fire caused by an “unknown projectile” that hit Passenger Hall No 4.

The Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that an Indian man had succumbed to the injuries he sustained in the attack.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attacks and confirmed that a US citizen was killed in the strikes. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said he was “appalled”.

The UK Foreign Office is advising against all travel to parts of Saudi Arabia, including areas within 10km (6.2 miles) of the border with Yemen, while other western embassies have warned their nationals about travel in the region.

The conflict worsened after the Houthis seized strategically important stretches of the Red Sea coast in a rapid offensive, prompting Saudi strikes. Yemeni pro-government forces later said they had secured the regions.

The Houthis currently control around a quarter of Yemeni territory and as much as 80% of the country’s population. The Iran-backed armed group hopes to eventually seize complete control.

Saudi Arabia fears this would lead to the establishment of an Iranian satellite state on its southern border.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his Saudi Arabian counterpart on Sunday that his country was ready to provide assistance to “facilitate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Yemen”, referring to the Houthi administration.