Twelve Killed at Riyadh Airport in the Third Strike This Week
Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority says twelve people were killed and 309 wounded when a missile hit the terminal complex at King Khalid International at about three on Saturday afternoon. The dead include four Saudis, two Bangladeshis and one national each from America, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt. The coalition calls it a war crime.
One thing needs saying carefully: the Houthis have not claimed this attack. They claimed Thursday’s, which killed three including a Saudia pilot, and the head of their media office posted that the group had “shut down Riyadh international airport” — but on Saturday’s strike itself they have said nothing. Saudi Arabia and the American State Department attribute it to them. Major General Turki al-Malki, the coalition spokesman, called it a “full-fledged war crime” and promised to “respond decisively… in accordance with the Customary International Humanitarian Law”, and confirmed a projectile also fell near King Fahd International at Dammam, the alternative hub. The BBC’s Middle East correspondent reported hospitals overwhelmed and called it the deadliest single attack on a Gulf Arab state since the war with Iran began in February. Around 580 flights were cancelled on Sunday and Riyadh’s schools move to remote learning for a week. António Guterres is “deeply shocked”; the United Nations envoy for Yemen called it “a grave escalation”; Marco Rubio confirmed an American was among the dead. The detail that bears on Britain: Saudi Arabia is running low on interceptor missiles and has asked Britain, France, Pakistan and Egypt for air defence support, and Britain is reported to be sending an aircraft to refuel Saudi jets.