Saudi Arabia said three people were killed and dozens injured in Houthi attacks on its airports this week, as the conflict between the kingdom and the Iran-backed rebels continues to escalate.
A Sudanese man was killed and seven other people were injured in an attack on King Khalid International Airport in the capital Riyadh on Wednesday, Saudi aviation authorities said. Two women were killed and 30 people injured in another strike on Abha airport in the kingdom’s south-west on Tuesday.
The attacks were claimed by Iran-backed Houthis who warned international airlines that they would continue targeting Saudi airspace, according to a statement by Brigadier General Yahya Saree, a military spokesperson for the group.
Saree said his forces again targeted Riyadh airport in the early hours of Thursday, without providing evidence.
The latest exchanges of fire come as fighting continues on multiple battlefronts across Yemen between Houthi rebels and forces of the internationally recognised Yemeni government that is supported by Saudi Arabia. The long-running conflict reignited in July.
The Saudi-led coalition said it responded to the attacks on airports by hitting 82 targets across several provinces in Yemen, including 11 mountain-based ballistic missile storage facilities in Saada, a Houthi stronghold.
“The brutal attacks by the terrorist Houthi Militia on civilian objects in the kingdom . . . will not go unpunished,” Major General Turki al-Maliki, a military spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, said in a statement.
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Yemeni government forces advance on Houthi positions in towns located near the Bab al-Mandab Strait on Monday
The Yemeni armed forces said on Thursday that it conducted 2,103 “precision-targeting operations” against the Houthis in several provinces, according to the government-linked Saba state news agency.
The government forces, backed by Saudi air strikes, launched a major blitz on Sunday to recapture all Yemeni territory from the Houthis who last month took control of the areas overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait in a lightning offensive.
Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 in an attempt to restore the internationally recognised government after the Houthis took over the capital Sana’a.
A truce agreed in 2022 between the kingdom and the Houthis collapsed in July after the rebels declared a blockade on the kingdom’s Red Sea ports and attacked Saudi ships and oil infrastructure.
The Saudi aviation authority said this week’s attacks “caused some property damage” and that it was working to “assess the damage, verify the safety of the facilities and take the necessary measures to ensure the safety of passengers and maintain the security and safety of operations within the kingdom’s civil aviation system”.