By Timour Azhari and Enas Alashray
RIYADH, Oct 10 (Reuters) - The third attack this week on Riyadh’s international airport left 12 people dead on Saturday and dozens wounded, according to three people familiar with the matter, with all flights diverted and Western governments telling citizens to avoid the area.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident but Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have been escalating their missile strikes on Saudi Arabia, and claimed responsibility for the two earlier attacks this week.
The spate of deadly strikes have exposed vulnerabilities in the kingdom’s ability to defend itself as it wages an air campaign against the Houthis to support a ground war by the Yemeni government against the Iran-backed group.
The Saudi government’s media office did not immediately respond to questions on the incident and the casualty toll.
There has been no official toll given.
The people briefed on the matter, who include two western officials, warned that the number of dead and wounded was not a final toll. The strike occurred without warning, with no alert issued by Saudi Arabia’s threat warning system.
The wounded were evacuated to hospitals by ambulance and helicopter, with some in critical condition, the people said.
Operations at the kingdom’s busiest airport, servicing a city of around 8 million people, were temporarily suspended, the civil aviation authority said.
After the attack occurred, the Houthi military spokesperson retweeted his own post from before the attack, saying only pre-approved humanitarian flights were allowed to land at Riyadh airport, adding the words: “a reminder.”
The Houthi strikes earlier in the week left four people dead and heavily damaged a Saudi commercial airliner.
US President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters outside the White House, was asked whether Washington planned to join Saudi strikes on the Houthis.
“We may. We’re going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly,” he said.
EYEWITNESS SAW WOUNDED ON THE GROUND
One eyewitness at the airport on Saturday reported seeing an explosion and then multiple people lying injured on the ground inside. More than a dozen ambulances were seen rushing towards the facility. A video verified by Reuters showed ambulances at the airport.
An injured traveller told Reuters they saw something fly across the sky outside the airport before part of the ceiling near a departure gate collapsed.
The US embassy in Riyadh said it was “aware of attacks” and “strongly recommends all US citizens avoid this airport and surrounding areas.”
The UK and Irish embassies in Saudi Arabia said in statements on X that they were also aware of a “serious incident” at the airport. The Canadian embassy said that “ongoing military activity” had impacted operations at the airport.
RIYADH DUE TO HOLD MAJOR SUMMITS
Flight-tracking site flightradar24 showed all flights to Riyadh had either been diverted or cancelled, with only a helicopter hovering over the airport at one point.
Kuwait Airways said it had cancelled flights to and from the Saudi capital due to what it described as the closure of Riyadh airport because of the “security situation” there.
Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways earlier cancelled multiple flights between their respective hubs and Riyadh, with some cancellations extending into Monday.
Houthi attacks on Thursday and earlier in the week had already prompted a number of carriers to suspend or cancel services to the Saudi capital, shortly before Riyadh is due to host major energy and investment conferences.
Organizers of those conferences said on Saturday they would go ahead as planned, and they sought to reassure attendees of their security.
The Houthis have said airliners should avoid Saudi airspace, declaring it a zone of military operations after the Saudi-backed Yemeni government launched an offensive against the group earlier this month.
With Riyadh under fire, the forces it backs in Yemen have also faced a setback as the Houthis tightened a siege on the country’s third-largest city, Taiz.
Saudi and Yemeni authorities, meanwhile, claimed that they had retaken the Bab el-Mandeb, a maritime chokepoint overrun by the Houthis in a lightning offensive last month.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari in Riyadh; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington DC; Writing by Enas Alashray and Maya Gebeily, Ann Saphir;Editing by Gareth Jones, Joe Bavier and David Gregorio)
