Saudi Airports Hit for Second Consecutive Day, 14 Killed; Trump Vows to 'Soon' Decide on Strikes Against Houthis
The Houthis have claimed responsibility for two consecutive days of strikes against Riyadh International Airport, killing citizens of multiple countries and leaving at least 14 dead. As the Saudi-led coalition characterized the attacks as a "war crime" and vowed retaliation, Trump said he would "soon" decide whether to take military action against Yemen, while the British defence secretary hinted at potentially expanded backing for Saudi Arabia — placing Washington and London before concrete opt
After Houthi strikes on Riyadh International Airport for two consecutive days killed at least 14 people, U.S. President Trump said the United States would "soon" decide whether to strike the Houthis, while British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting hinted that Britain could "potentially" provide more support to Saudi Arabia. According to the BBC, Saturday's attack on King Khalid International Airport killed 13 and wounded 308, the worst single strike on a Gulf Arab state since the war between Israel, the United States and Iran began in February. The same airport was struck again on Sunday, killing one Pakistani resident and wounding 11.
The Saudi-led coalition labeled the Saturday attack a "war crime" and vowed to respond. But according to the BBC, Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree explicitly framed the strikes as retaliation for Saudi support of Yemeni government forces and for the Saudi-led coalition's earlier airstrikes on Sana'a airport in the Yemeni capital. The group used ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in the strikes and "warned that all Saudi airports could be targeted," while excluding the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The same day, the Houthis also struck oil facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia and Dammam airport.
The transnational civilian toll is unfolding on Saudi soil. Among the Saturday dead released by the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation were four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshis, and one person each from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt; the Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia subsequently confirmed that an Indian citizen had died of injuries. The deaths of laborers from South Asian and African countries once again expose how the mobile, vulnerable populations that fuel the Gulf's conflict economy are dragged into fires not of their own making.
The responses from Washington and London are making the path of Western deeper entanglement in the Saudi-led coalition's war concrete in concrete ways. Trump said the United States would "make a decision" and act "very rapidly"; Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attacks and confirmed the death of an American citizen. British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said he was "deeply shocked" by the strikes, and the Foreign Office has advised citizens against travel to parts of Saudi Arabia, including within 10 kilometers of the Yemeni border; other Western embassies issued similar warnings.
Coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki said Sunday that air defenses had "intercepted a missile" near the airport, while the projectile that sparked the fire in Terminal 4 was an "unidentified projectile" — the relationship between the two accounts has yet to be clarified. In a conflict that began in Yemen but has carried its flames into the heart of the Gulf, Houthi retaliation is delivering, in direct fashion, the political and humanitarian costs accumulated through years of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes back onto the civilian infrastructure of those who launched them.
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