Twelve Killed in Attack on Riyadh's King Khalid Airport

At least 12 people were killed and 309 injured in an attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's civil aviation authority said, according to the BBC. Operations at the airport have been suspended.

A Saudi-led military coalition has blamed the attack on Yemen's Houthi movement and called it a "war crime." The strike was the deadliest in the kingdom since May 2015, the BBC reported.

What happened at King Khalid International Airport?

The attack struck one of the airport's passenger terminals, according to Saudi-led coalition spokesman Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, who said it caused deaths and injuries among civilian passengers and airport staff. The Saudi civil aviation authority said some of the injured were in critical condition and that damage to the airport was being assessed.

An eyewitness inside the domestic terminal told a news agency that gate 401 was hit. "Injured [people] in front of my eyes," the witness said. "Everyone was running." More than a dozen ambulances were seen responding, Reuters reported, citing an eyewitness.

A projectile also fell near King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, in eastern Saudi Arabia, on the same day, the coalition said.

Who were the victims?

The dead included four Saudi nationals, two people from Bangladesh, and one person each from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt, the Saudi civil aviation authority said. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the recent attacks on Saudi Arabia and confirmed an American citizen was among those killed.

Who is responsible for the attack?

The Houthis said they carried out strikes on the airport on Thursday that killed three people and damaged a plane, but had not claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack as of the BBC's report. The Saudi-led coalition has attributed Saturday's strike to the Houthis, calling it a "full-fledged war crime," in al-Maliki's words.

The attack followed a string of strikes on Saudi airports. A day earlier, authorities said three Saudis, including a pilot, were killed in two Houthi attacks on the airport. Three more people were killed in Houthi attacks on two Saudi airports on October 6 and 7, according to the BBC.

Why are the Houthis attacking Saudi airports?

The Houthis say they are targeting Saudi Arabia over its support for Yemeni government forces in the country's civil war. Fighting between Yemen's Saudi-backed government and the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, has escalated recently.

The conflict worsened after Houthi forces seized stretches of Yemen's Red Sea coast in a rapid offensive, including the port of Mokha on the Bab al-Mandab Strait — the narrowest point of the Red Sea and a chokepoint for global shipping. Yemeni pro-government forces have since said they "secured" the strait at its southern end.

How is Saudi Arabia responding?

The Saudi-led coalition has vowed to respond to the attack. Western embassies in Saudi Arabia have warned their citizens to stay away from the airport. The UK Foreign Office told British nationals to avoid the area "until the airport is secure."

What happens to flights now?

Several Gulf airlines canceled flights to and from King Khalid International Airport. Kuwait Airways cited the "security situation" at the airport in its cancellation notice. Aviation tracker Flightradar showed that all flights to Riyadh had either been diverted or canceled following the attack, the BBC reported.

The airport remains closed while Saudi authorities assess the damage. No timeline for reopening has been announced.

Why does the Bab al-Mandab Strait matter to the broader conflict?

The Houthi advance along Yemen's Red Sea coast gave the group control of Mokha, a port sitting on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrowest point of the Red Sea and a chokepoint for global shipping, according to the BBC. Control of that stretch of coastline has been central to the escalation between the Houthis and Yemen's Saudi-backed government in recent weeks.

Yemeni pro-government forces have said they have since "secured" the strait at its southern end, the BBC reported, though the report did not detail how that claim affects shipping traffic through the waterway or the broader military balance in Yemen's civil war.

The timing of the airport strikes, days after the coalition reported Houthi attacks on two other Saudi airports on October 6 and 7, points to a sustained campaign rather than an isolated incident. Saturday's death toll makes it the deadliest attack inside Saudi Arabia since May 2015, the BBC said, underscoring how far the fighting has reached beyond Yemen's borders and into Saudi civilian infrastructure, including airports that serve both domestic and international passengers.