Pilgrims Died at Riyadh Airport After Yemen’s Coast Fell

A missile killed 13 people at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on Saturday, then a Sunday strike killed a Pakistani resident and wounded 11. The General Authority of Civil Aviation listed 12 dead and 309 people injured from Saturday’s hit, and India’s embassy said one of its citizens later died of those wounds.

State television showed Umrah pilgrims at a gate bound for Islam’s holiest cities when an orange flash sent them running and part of the roof gave way. The airport, already struck twice earlier in the week, stayed closed. About 10 km (6 miles) away, a five-day world energy congress opened on Sunday as planned.

Umrah Pilgrims Were Standing at the Gate

Saturday’s missile struck the complex that houses terminals 3 and 4, the domestic halls at King Khalid. A passenger in the hall said the blast landed one gate over.

I was on gate 403. I saw 401 hit, I saw injured in front of my eyes. Everyone was running.

Passenger, King Khalid International Airport, Saturday

GACA said the 12 people it counted dead included four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi residents, and one person each from the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Sudan. Some of the 309 wounded were in critical condition and were spread across several hospitals. Egyptian officials identified one of the dead as Azza Ramzi Mohamed Hassan, a 28-year-old flynas flight attendant.

The clip that moved fastest was not of a runway or a jet. It was of pilgrims in ihram, lined up to fly toward Makkah and Madinah, when the hall filled with fire and dust. That is the war the Houthis brought into the capital: a departure queue, not a base.

Coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki said the strike killed and wounded civilian passengers and airport staff. Operations were halted while crews checked the building. FlightAware logged 291 cancellations at the airport over 24 hours. The attack was the deadliest in the kingdom since a May 2015 suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in Qatif that Saudi authorities said killed 21 people and wounded 81.

Terminal 4 Caught Fire on Sunday

On Sunday an unidentified projectile hit Terminal 4 and started a fire, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said. Air defences also reported destroying a cruise missile near the airport, a drone over the Eastern Province, and a ballistic missile headed toward Khamis Mushait. Civil Defense issued alerts in Abha, then said the danger had passed.

THE WEEK AT KING KHALID

1. Earlier this week: Two prior strikes on the same airport killed four people and badly damaged a Saudi airliner on the tarmac.
2. Saturday, October 10: A missile hits the terminals 3 and 4 complex. GACA lists 12 dead and 309 wounded. India’s embassy later reports one citizen dead of injuries, taking Saturday’s toll to 13. The airport shuts.
3. Sunday, October 11: A projectile hits Terminal 4 and starts a fire. GACA says a Pakistani resident is killed and 11 people are hurt. King Fahd International Airport in Dammam is also struck.
4. Monday, October 12: Flightradar24 said the Riyadh halt was extended until 2100 GMT. Damage checks at both airports were still under way.

Sunday’s death, stacked on Saturday’s 13 and the four from the earlier strikes, took the week’s toll at the Riyadh airport to 18. GACA said the Sunday wounded were moved to hospital at once. It was the fourth attack on King Khalid in five days.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, in a televised address on Sunday, claimed the Saturday strike and said the group had also hit Dammam and two Saudi Aramco sites. The government’s media office and Aramco did not answer requests for comment. GACA confirmed a strike on Dammam late Sunday and said safety checks there were continuing.

The Bill for Losing the Red Sea Coast

The airport barrage did not come out of a quiet border. On September 10 the Houthis seized Mocha and Perim Island, then the rest of Yemen’s southern Red Sea shore, including the Hanish Islands. Saree said the push covered 5,400 square kilometers and was meant to drive Saudi-backed forces off the west coast.

Yemeni officers asked Riyadh for air cover as Mocha fell and did not get it in time. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked Washington for strikes on the advancing columns on September 10. President Donald Trump declined. The United States kept sharing intelligence and targeting data instead. Trump told reporters two days later that the Houthis had contacted Washington, did not want a fight with American forces, and were “letting most ships go through.”

Riyadh then leaned on air power over Yemen, backing a government effort to retake the shore. The Houthis said Saudi aircraft flew 124 strikes in 24 hours around the weekend attacks, a figure released by the Houthi-run foreign ministry and not confirmed in Riyadh. “Unless the Saudi enemy stops its aggression and interference in Yemen, worse is yet to come, God willing,” that ministry said.

The coast matters because it sits on Bab al-Mandeb, the gate at the foot of the Red Sea. Before the Houthis began shooting at merchant ships in late 2023, more than 9 million barrels of oil a day moved through that strait. After Iran shut Hormuz this year, Kpler recorded more than 7 million barrels a day there in June, much of it Saudi crude sent west through the East-West pipeline. On September 11, after pumping stations were hit, Riyadh closed that line, which had been moving 3 to 4.5 million barrels a day toward the Red Sea. Crisis Group has warned that the kingdom has little appetite for another 2015-style ground war and that a freeze is the urgent step, not a wider campaign.

The International Energy Forum’s data house in Washington still treats oil flows through Bab el-Mandeb as a chokepoint the market cannot ignore. Hitting Riyadh’s passenger terminal puts that leverage on a civilian clock.

What the Death Toll Shows

GACA’s Saturday list is a map of who actually stands in a Gulf airport hall: Saudis, and the men and women who work and travel beside them.

SATURDAY’S DEAD, BY NATIONALITY

India’s embassy said one of its citizens, injured on Saturday, died on Sunday, which is why Saturday’s toll is 13 rather than GACA’s first 12. Six Pakistanis were wounded on Saturday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said, before Sunday’s strike killed a Pakistani resident. Egypt said five other Egyptians were hurt. The Philippine mission said none of its nationals had died.

Jordan’s foreign ministry confirmed one Jordanian dead and four wounded. The people in that table were not convening an energy forum. They were staff, residents, and pilgrims in a public hall.

The Energy Congress Opened Anyway

The 25th WPC Energy Congress ran from Sunday through Thursday at a convention centre about 10 km from the airport, the Saudi energy ministry said. A ministerial meeting of the International Energy Forum, co-hosted with Italy and Nigeria, went ahead the same day, with the plenary held behind closed doors. Saudi state television had said more than 70 ministers, 300 company executives, and officials from more than 25 energy bodies had planned to come.

WHO SHOWED, WHO DID NOT

• The hall: Organisers opened WPC on Sunday and told delegates the programme still stood.
• The Italian co-host: Energy minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin had already said on Friday he would join the IEF meeting by video rather than fly in.
• The German minister: Economy minister Katherina Reiche was in Riyadh and due back in Berlin on Monday; her ministry said her flight looked unlikely to leave and began looking for another way home.
• The oil majors: BP said it had made every effort to attend WPC but travel breaks meant it could not be there in person. Early notices also had the top executives of Exxon Mobil, TotalEnergies and Shell dropping the trip.
• The backup road: Organisers told delegates they could fly into Dammam and drive about four hours to Riyadh. Dammam’s airport was then struck on Sunday night.

IEF secretary general Jassim Alshirawi told ministers that energy security is a shared responsibility and that sitting down in Riyadh was a show of resilience. Italy’s minister had already voted with his schedule. The Future Investment Initiative, the kingdom’s flagship investor gathering, is still listed for October 26 to 29.

Trump Has Not Decided on Joining the Strikes

Asked on Saturday whether the United States would join Saudi strikes on the Houthis, Trump spoke outside the White House before GACA had even issued its full death list.

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.

Donald Trump, U.S. president, to reporters outside the White House

He called the Saudis “good fighters” and the attack “a terrible thing,” and said he planned to speak with Mohammed bin Salman. He had said days earlier that he would not strike Iran again before the November midterms. The Houthi question, he stressed, was separate. In September he had refused the crown prince’s request for American aircraft over Mocha. Saturday’s death count put that refusal back on his desk.

The Houthis had already warned airlines to stay out of Saudi airspace, calling it a military zone, with an exception they stated for Mecca and Medina. “We urge everyone to take our warnings seriously, and Saudi Arabia bears responsibility for any failed interceptions,” the group said. U.S. aviation officials told American airlines to use caution on flights to or over the kingdom. Britain’s embassy advised against all but essential travel to Jeddah, Dammam, and every Saudi airport except Medina.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, told his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, that Tehran was ready to help open talks between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband also called Prince Faisal and condemned the airport attacks. There was no public sign on Sunday that Trump had held the call he had previewed with the crown prince.

Dammam Was the Backup Route

A passenger on a taxiing jet at Dammam, the kingdom’s third-largest airport, said that at about 8:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) on Sunday a projectile hit the tarmac beside parked aircraft and started a fire. The jet returned to the gate. Passengers got off and were told to leave. Flightradar24 showed delays and cancellations there through the evening.

That was the airport WPC organisers had named as the way in if Riyadh stayed shut. Lufthansa had already suspended Riyadh flights through October 16. Flydubai halted Riyadh service through October 14. Etihad cancelled its Saturday flights. People with bags stood outside a metro station on the airport road and were told to call their airlines before setting out.

Riyadh’s schools shifted to remote classes from Sunday through Thursday for students, teachers, and staff. Radar and communications gear at King Khalid was damaged, a senior aviation source said, and the runways still needed a full check. GACA said inspections at Dammam were running in parallel.

Saree’s list, the pilgrim-hall video, and the Dammam tarmac fire sit on the same line. Saudi jets have been over Yemen since the coast collapsed in September. The people who died in Riyadh were in a public terminal. The energy meeting still opened. The backup airport was then hit. Flightradar24 said King Khalid would stay closed until 2100 GMT on Monday, October 12.