Houthis hit Riyadh and Abha airports, three killed
Saudi civil aviation authorities report three dead and 36 injured in Houthi attacks on the airports in Abha and Riyadh. The same morning, a missile landed near the runway in Aden.
Three civilians were killed and 36 people injured in attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on the airports in Abha and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said. The attacks took place on Tuesday, October 6, and Wednesday, October 7, 2026, and the same morning projectiles also hit the airport in Aden, which is controlled by Yemen’s internationally recognized government. The conflict centers on the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the shipping route between Asia and Europe, so its consequences do not stop at the Arabian Peninsula.
Who was killed and where?
At Abha airport in the south of the country, two women residing in Saudi Arabia were killed, one a Moroccan national and the other an Algerian. Twenty-eight people were injured, among them citizens of Bangladesh and the Philippines.
At King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, a Sudanese national was killed and eight people were injured: five Saudi citizens, two Egyptians and one Pakistani. The authority says the injuries range from minor to serious and that material damage was caused, the extent of which is still being assessed.
Flights at Riyadh airport were suspended for more than an hour on Wednesday morning, according to the Flightradar24 platform, as cited by The National. NBC News writes only that flights were briefly disrupted.
What do the Houthis claim, and what does the coalition say?
The Houthis claimed responsibility for both attacks. Their military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, said King Khalid airport was targeted with drones, while Abha airport and Khamis Mushait air base were hit with ballistic missiles and drones. The sources differ here: NBC News reports that the Houthis used ballistic missiles against Riyadh as well, not only drones. The Houthis also said they targeted military bases in Asir, while The National names Jizan as another target and NBC News names Najran.
Saree also claims the strikes killed and wounded dozens of Saudi soldiers and officers and set weapons depots on fire. None of these claims about casualties and damage has been independently confirmed.
The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile north of Riyadh. Its spokesman, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, announced that the launch platform had been tracked over Sanaa and would be destroyed. The day before, the same spokesman said the coalition had destroyed a launch platform in Sanaa and a missile depot in Saada.
What happened in Aden?
At about 2 a.m. local time, the Houthis targeted Aden International Airport with at least two ballistic missiles and several drones. The runway and the passenger terminal were hit, and according to early reports there were no casualties. Yemen’s Ministry of Transport said:
One of the missiles landed near the runway a few minutes before a Yemeni flight from Cairo was due to land.
The sources do not agree on what happened to that flight. Al Jazeera and The National report that Yemenia flight 603 was diverted to Jeddah, while NBC News, citing the FlightAware platform, says it landed safely in Aden at 3:30 a.m. The ministry says the terminal was evacuated and two aircraft were removed from the runway.
Aden’s police said in a statement: “Targeting this vital civilian facility is a direct threat to the safety of civilians, passengers, employees and crews.” The Houthis claim they targeted Saudi military supplies at Camp Badr next to the airport.
How do the attacks follow earlier ones?
Riyadh has been a target before. On September 18, the coalition intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Yemen toward the airport there, and the next day an explosion was heard near the airport while black smoke rose from a fuel depot at King Khalid airport. On Tuesday, according to The National, the airports in Jizan and Najran were also attacked.
Saudi forces and allied Yemeni units are conducting an offensive to retake territory on the Red Sea coast and around Bab el-Mandeb, which the Houthis seized about a month ago. On Monday, Pakistan and Turkey agreed to activate the “deterrence measures” in their joint defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and to quickly send forces to the kingdom.
The victims are not only at the airports. Yemen’s Minister of Legal Affairs, Ishraq al-Maqtari, said Houthi shelling in Taiz province killed six civilians and wounded 18. The US-based Institute for the Study of War assessed that the Houthis believe they can “maximize Saudi economic costs and force Saudi Arabia to make concessions by targeting civilian infrastructure, such as oil facilities and airports.”
