Saudi says Riyadh airport partly reopens despite renewed Houthi threats

Saudi Arabia said its main airport had partially resumed operations at two terminals on Sunday despite renewed threats to target it from Yemen’s Houthis, as the kingdom intercepted another wave of missiles and drones amid continued fighting with the group.

The Houthis have continued their daily attacks on the kingdom, the world’s largest oil exporter, despite Saudi strikes against the group, with the airport’s partial reopening coming after a deadly attack earlier this month that forced it to suspend operations.

The conflict has become an increasingly destabilizing element in the US-Israeli offensive against Iran, turning US ally Saudi Arabia into a pressure point in the wider war.

Flight tracking data shows little traffic

After Saudi authorities announced the partial resumption of operations at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree early on Sunday renewed a warning to airlines, airport staff and travellers against using it, saying it remained a “military target” and would “never be safe”.

Late on Saturday, the airport said Terminal 1 would be designated for domestic flights and Terminal 2 for international flights operated by national carriers starting Sunday.

Despite the announcement, flight tracking data from Flightradar24 showed little traffic at the airport on Sunday.

The airport had halted operations on October 10 following an attack claimed by the Houthis that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300, the deadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade.

The Saudi-led coalition said earlier this month that the Houthis had carried out 20 attacks on King Khalid International Airport between October 1 and 11.

Missile, drone attacks continue

Saudi civil defence authorities issued emergency alerts for Riyadh and the cities of Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jazan and Najran son Sunday, before saying minutes later that the danger had passed.

The coalition said two drones and a ballistic missile were launched towards Riyadh, and a cruise missile towards the southern city of Khamis Mushait. It later said it intercepted 10 ballistic missiles fired towards southern Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis said they attacked the airport and Saudi oil facilities on Saturday. Saudi authorities did not comment directly on the Houthi statements.

Saudi Arabia has stepped up its strikes against the Houthis after the group seized strategic territory along the Red Sea coast last month, closing in on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – a global maritime chokepoint and shipping route for Gulf oil producers on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula to the Strait of Hormuz.

The renewed fighting in Yemen has shattered a UN-brokered truce that had largely held since 2022. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 at the head of a coalition supporting the internationally recognised government, after the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa a year earlier.