A fresh Riyadh airport attack on Sunday started a fire at Terminal 4 of King Khalid International Airport, the Saudi-led coalition said, one day after a strike at the airport killed 12 people. Dawn quoted coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki as saying that the object which hit the terminal had not been identified, that it started a fire, and that officials were on the scene. ARY News reported that the airport remained closed, and that Saturday’s strike wounded more than 300 people in what it called the deadliest attack of this kind on the kingdom in more than a decade.
The Saudi-led coalition is the military alliance headed by Saudi Arabia and fighting the Houthis, an armed Yemeni movement that ARY News described as Iran-backed. Sunday’s strike came hours after the Houthis told airlines and travellers to stay away from Saudi airports.
What the coalition said happened
Maliki wrote on X that air defences had “intercepted and destroyed” a cruise missile near the airport, Dawn reported. ARY News, citing the coalition, said Saudi air defences had intercepted a cruise missile in the vicinity and that no further detail was immediately available. Both accounts tie an unidentified projectile to Terminal 4 and to a fire. They do not match on whether that cruise missile was only intercepted or was also destroyed.
Neither report says if anyone was hurt on Sunday, or if the fire was extinguished. Neither names who fired. The deaths belong to the earlier strike: Dawn said Saturday’s attack was blamed on the Houthis, while ARY News put the toll at 12 dead and more than 300 wounded. ARY News said Saturday’s King Khalid International Airport attack was why the airport remained closed.
Blasts reported in the capital
Before the coalition gave its account, AFP journalists heard a powerful explosion in central Riyadh, Dawn reported. Three residents in the north of the city later said they heard another blast. A resident of Al-Aarid told AFP: “The birds went into a frenzy after the sound. The whole house shook.”
Residents also said they saw ambulances heading towards the airport, in the northeast of the capital. A Riyadh Metro official told AFP that service to two of the three airport stations had been suspended. The official said that choice would be “reviewed on a daily basis”.
Houthi warning and the Yemen war
Earlier on Sunday the Houthis posted a fresh warning on X, telling airlines, staff and travellers not to use Saudi airports or airspace. They called those sites vulnerable to attack and an area of operations for their forces, and they left out the airports of Mecca and Medina. They said Saudi Arabia would bear responsibility if an interception failed, and they urged people to take the warning seriously.
The Houthi-run foreign ministry said later on Sunday that further Saudi military action in Yemen would draw a stronger response, guided by reciprocity. On the Houthi-run channel Al Masirah, the ministry said “worse is yet to come” unless Saudi Arabia stopped what it called aggression and interference in Yemen.
ARY News reported that Saudi Arabia has stepped up its military role in Yemen in recent weeks, striking the Houthis and backing a Yemeni government counteroffensive after the group seized strategic territory on the Red Sea coast last month. Dawn called that advance a swift offensive that took stretches of coastline. Saudi Arabia backs Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
Conference plans and the next risk
Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry said a long-planned international energy conference was still going ahead in Riyadh on Sunday, even with the airport closed, ARY News reported. The report referred to a five-day WPC Energy Congress.
ARY News also reported that President Donald Trump said on Saturday the United States was considering joining Saudi strikes on the Houthis. It described the fighting as a spillover from a wider war on Iran that the United States and Israel launched in February.
These accounts of the Riyadh airport attack give no reopening time and no casualty figure for Sunday. The Houthi warning still covers Saudi airports other than Mecca and Medina, and the metro suspension is to be reviewed each day.
