At least 12 people have been killed and 309 injured in an attack on King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh, local authorities say, and operations at the hub have been suspended.
The strike came days after Yemen’s Houthis claimed to have carried out similar attacks on the airport.
Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation Authority said four of the dead were Saudi nationals and two were Bangladeshi. Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Sudan, Syria and the United States each had one citizen killed, according to the authority.
The US embassy said it was “aware of attacks” and urged Americans to stay away from the area.
Reuters, citing an eyewitness, reported that more than a dozen ambulances were seen rushing to the airport.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said a projectile also fell near King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, in eastern Saudi Arabia.
The attack comes a day after authorities said three Saudis, including a pilot, were killed in two attacks on the Riyadh airport by the Iran-backed Houthis. Another three people were killed in Houthi attacks on two Saudi airports on 6 and 7 October.
An eyewitness who said they had been in the domestic terminal told the news agency that gate 401 was hit and that they saw “injured [people] in front of my eyes”, adding: “Everyone was running.”
Western embassies in Saudi Arabia warned their citizens away from the airport, while the UK Foreign Office told British nationals to stay away “until the airport is secure and to monitor the advice of the Saudi authorities”.
Several Gulf airlines said they had cancelled flights to and from the airport, with Kuwait Airways citing the “security situation” there.
Aviation tracker Flightradar showed that all flights to Riyadh had been either diverted or cancelled.
A medical source told AFP that doctors had been asked to report to hospitals. “We were told we are dealing with a ‘serious emergency situation’,” the source told the agency.
The suspected attack comes during a marked escalation in renewed fighting between Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces and the Houthis, who control most of the country’s north-west.
The Houthis say they are targeting Saudi Arabia over its support for government forces in Yemen’s civil war.
The conflict worsened after the Houthis seized strategically important stretches of the Red Sea coast in a rapid offensive, including the port of Mokha on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Red Sea’s narrowest point and a chokepoint for global shipping. Yemeni pro-government forces have since said they had “secured” the strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.
A Saudi-led coalition was formed in 2015 after Arab countries joined forces to stop the Houthis taking over Yemen from the country’s internationally recognised government.
A temporary ceasefire was brokered in 2022 after years of air strikes and ground fighting led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, triggering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The informal truce began to unravel in July.
The Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea. They said they were retaliating against what they described as a years-long Saudi blockade and for an air strike on Sanaa airport.
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