Missile strikes main airport in Saudi Arabia, leaving 12 dead and 309 injured

Riyadh Airport before the attack Saudi authorities announced that 12 people died, including 4 Saudis and an American, and another 309 were wounded, some of them seriously, in Saturday's missile attack on the facilities of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, attributed to Yemen's Houthi Shiite insurgents. "Regarding the brutal attack that targeted King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on the afternoon of October 10, the aggression caused the death of 12 people, including 4 Saudi citizens," the General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement. It indicated that the rest of the fatalities are "residents: 2 of Bangladeshi nationality, an American, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian, a Palestinian and a Sudanese." It also stated that the attack "wounded 309 people, who are receiving the necessary medical care in several hospitals, some of them in critical condition," as well as causing "material damage that is currently being assessed." The official Saudi authority did not, however, say when operations at the airport, which were suspended "temporarily," would resume. Nevertheless, it had stated in an initial statement that the suspension of operations would continue "until the damage assessment is completed and the safety of the facilities is verified, in coordination with the competent authorities." Saturday's attack is the second attributed to the Houthi rebels on Riyadh airport in the last 24 hours, after Friday's attack, which killed three people and damaged a Saudi airline plane and other facilities. Last Wednesday, Saudi authorities also announced the deaths of three other people and more than 30 wounded, of various nationalities, in similar attacks by the Yemeni insurgents on the airports of Riyadh and Abha, the latter in the southwest of the Arab kingdom. The Houthis, backed by Iran, have claimed several attacks with drones and ballistic missiles against Saudi civilian and military facilities in recent weeks, including airports and energy installations. The Yemeni rebels claim that their attacks against the Arab kingdom are a response to Saudi Arabia's air strikes against their positions in Yemen in support of the offensive by forces loyal to the internationally recognized Yemeni government. The new statement from the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation came shortly after another airport in the Arab kingdom, that of Dammam, in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Region, was hit by a "projectile," according to official reports. "A projectile fell in the vicinity of King Fahd International Airport in Dammam," said the military spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, Saudi Turki al-Maliki, on his X account. The spokesman did not provide details about the attack, the type of "projectile," or whether there were any victims.