Saudi air defenses swat down missiles over Riyadh as Houthi war reignites

Air defenses lit up over the Saudi capital on Sunday. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said it intercepted drones and missiles aimed at Riyadh and southern parts of the kingdom as fighting with the Iran-aligned Houthis rolled on. Civil defence authorities fired off emergency alerts for Riyadh, Abha and Khamis Mushait, then declared the danger over minutes later. The coalition tallied two drones and a ballistic missile heading for Riyadh, plus a cruise missile toward Khamis Mushait, and later said it downed ten ballistic missiles launched at southern Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis aren't blinking. Their military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said King Khalid International Airport remains a quote-unquote military target and warned airlines, airport staff and travellers to steer clear of it. The group claimed it struck the airport and Saudi oil facilities on Saturday, claims Saudi authorities did not address directly, according to Reuters.

That airport is only just limping back. Late Saturday it announced Terminal 1 would take domestic flights and Terminal 2 would handle international flights by national carriers starting Sunday. Operations had been frozen since October 10, when an attack claimed by the Houthis killed 13 people and wounded more than 300 others — the deadliest hit on the kingdom in more than a decade.

The Yemen fight is bleeding into a bigger one. Reuters reports the conflict has become an increasingly destabilising front in the US-Israeli offensive against Iran, turning US ally Saudi Arabia into a pressure point in the wider war. Saudi Arabia has escalated its strikes on the Houthis since the group seized strategic territory along the Red Sea coast last month, closing in on Bab el-Mandeb Strait — a global maritime chokepoint and shipping route for Gulf oil producers.

All of it has shattered a UN-brokered truce that had largely held since 2022. Saudi Arabia entered Yemen's civil war in 2015 at the head of a coalition backing the internationally recognised government, a year after the Houthis captured the capital, Sanaa. With missiles flying at Riyadh and the airport back in the crosshairs, there's little sign of the shooting stopping soon.