Houthis Strike Riyadh With Missiles and Drones After Saudi Intercepts Ballistic Missile

Houthis said they attacked “sensitive” sites in Riyadh with missiles and drones, hours after flames and a large plume of black smoke were seen near King Khalid International Airport, as Saudi Arabia’s coalition said it intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched toward Riyadh at dawn on Saturday.

“successfully intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi terrorist militia towards the city of Riyadh at dawn on Saturday”

AFP

AFP reported firefighters extinguished a blaze on a fuel tank with the logo of Saudi oil giant Aramco at a fuel depot near the airport, after an AFP journalist saw the fire and verified footage showed a column of black smoke above airport buildings.A

AFP

Saudi coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki posted on X that the Saudi air force “successfully intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi terrorist militia towards the city of Riyadh at dawn on Saturday,” and said the Houthis also tried to target “civilians and civilian infrastructure in Bisha, Taif, Farasan, and Yanbu.”

The Houthis’ military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement on Telegram that the group had responded to recent Saudi attacks by carrying out “two successful military operations using a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones,” with the first targeting Riyadh and the second targeting Aramco facilities in Yanbu.

The UN said renewed fighting had displaced more than 112,000 people while nearly 3,000 others had fled across the sea to Djibouti, as the renewed Saudi-Houthi escalation threatened the Saudi capital for the first time since Yemen’s civil war resumed.

Saudi authorities sent air raid alerts by phone overnight warning of potential danger around Riyadh, and residents told AFP they heard what sounded like a round of explosions echoing through parts of the Saudi capital before the alert was lifted.

A Riyadh resident, 27, living in the city’s north, told AFP: "I heard the alarm, then my windows shook," adding, "It was definitely scary. I was not expecting this."

BBC

In Riyadh, Reuters video and photographs showed a huge pillar of black smoke rising in the area, with the airport highway, main terminal building and other facilities in the foreground, and at one point flames were visible rising from behind what appeared to be fuel tanks.

The BBC reported that Turki al-Maliki said Saudi forces managed at dawn on Saturday to intercept and destroy a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis towards Riyadh, while the BBC also cited Yahya Sari saying the Houthis carried out two significant military operations and that the attacks achieved their objectives and caused "massive fires in the targeted areas."

The UN security council condemned continued Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia in a statement on Friday, saying they had included attacks that affected civilian and energy infrastructure and had injured civilians, including women and children.

The incident came as the Houthis staged a lightning offensive in Yemen, seizing swathes of territory and leaving the internationally recognised government backed by Saudi Arabia scrambling to respond, while the Houthis said they had improved their defences in newly conquered territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coastline.

“has the potential to escalate rapidly”

AFP

AFP reported that members of the group told AFP they have been installing radar and digging tunnels, as the Houthis’ reported advances along the Red Sea coastline increased pressure on shipping through the Bab al-Mandab strait.A

The BBC said the Houthis’ military spokesman Yahya Sari blamed Saudi Arabia for conducting more than 300 airstrikes in Yemen over the past week, while the BBC also reported that in the past hours, 48 people were killed in intense fighting in southern Yemen between government forces backed by Saudi Arabia and Houthi forces backed by Iran.

The BBC further reported that Yemeni government officials told AFP that 17 of their soldiers were killed, while the Houthis said 31 of their fighters were killed in the past day, and that UN monitors documented 28 civilian deaths and 82 injuries since the renewed fighting began.A

In Washington, the US State Department and its embassies around the region issued a security alert Saturday warning that the conflict “has the potential to escalate rapidly,” as Reuters and other reporting tied the Riyadh episode to a wider escalation between the US and Iran and to the Houthis’ campaign against Saudi Arabia’s energy and infrastructure.