Update, 14 October — two more nights of attacks on Riyadh, and the dead of 11 October are named by nationality. Air defences destroyed two cruise missiles over Riyadh late on Tuesday (debris injured four people and damaged about 15 homes) and a ballistic missile on Wednesday (debris injured one resident). An Aramco administrative building at Dhahran caught fire. The Saudi aviation authority’s nationality breakdown of Saturday’s 13 dead contains no Sri Lankan, and Sunday’s one fatality is identified as a Pakistani civilian. See Update, 14 October below.

Update, 12 October — the warning has been carried out at a second airport. The Houthis say they struck Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport and two Saudi Aramco facilities, and Saudi aviation authorities have confirmed the Dammam strike. Sunday’s attack on Riyadh now has a casualty count — one dead, 11 wounded — and Saturday’s toll has been revised to 13. Britain and the United States have issued travel advice covering the whole kingdom. See Update: the campaign widens to Dammam below.

Update — a fresh attack hit the airport the same day. On Sunday evening a projectile struck Terminal 4 at King Khalid International Airport, starting a fire, and air defences reported destroying a cruise missile nearby. See Update: a second strike, on Terminal 4 below.

Yemen’s Houthi movement has told airlines, aviation staff and travellers to stay away from Saudi airports and airspace altogether, a day after a missile attack on Riyadh’s international airport killed at least 12 people and injured more than 300. (The toll for that attack has since been revised to 13 — see the 12 October update below.)

The warning matters directly to Sri Lanka. Saudi Arabia hosts one of the largest Sri Lankan migrant workforces abroad, and SriLankan Airlines has already suspended its Riyadh operations until 18 October following the attack.

What the Houthis said

Military spokesman Yahya Saree said on X that “the Yemeni armed forces renew their warning to all aviation and navigation companies, experts, staff, workers, and travellers against using Saudi airports and airspace,” the Daily Mirror reported, carrying a DW report.

“The airports and airspace are exposed to targeting and constitute a theatre of operations for our forces,” he said. He added that the airports of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam, would not be targeted — the only exemption named.

Saree said the warning should be taken “seriously” and that Saudi Arabia “bore responsibility” for failing to intercept the missiles that struck Riyadh on Saturday.

Hiru News carried the same statement from a Reuters report, in identical terms: the warning covers airlines, airport workers and travellers, and the kingdom “bore responsibility for failed interceptions”.

The attack behind it

Operations at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport — which has no military facilities — were suspended after Saturday’s strike. It is the deadliest attack on any Gulf Arab state since the start of the Iran war.

NewsFirst reported a broad wave of international condemnation. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the attack killed an American and called for an end to “these reprehensible attacks”. President Donald Trump, asked whether the US would join the war against the Houthis, said: “We may. We’re gonna look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so we’ll make a decision. We’ll move very quickly.”

UN special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg called the strikes on civilian airports “a grave escalation” that “pose a serious threat to regional security, perpetuate cycles of violence and complicate even more peace efforts for Yemen”. Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan all condemned the attack; Pakistan, which recently activated a mutual defence pact with Riyadh, called it a “heinous act of terrorism”.

The Saudi-led coalition described the attack as a “fully-fledged war crime” and vowed a tough response.

Context

The strike on Riyadh came amid a surge in Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia this week targeting airports, military sites and oil infrastructure, following a major coalition offensive against the group. The Houthis, aligned with Tehran, have fought Yemen’s internationally recognised government for more than a decade; a 2022 truce froze but did not end the conflict.

Update: a second strike, on Terminal 4

Riyadh airport came under attack again on Sunday — the same day as the warning above. The Saudi-led coalition said an unidentified projectile struck Terminal 4 at King Khalid International Airport, causing a fire, with authorities responding at the scene, the Daily Mirror reported, carrying an AFP account.

Coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki said on X that air defences had “intercepted and destroyed” a cruise missile near the airport. That is a different munition from the ballistic missiles blamed for Saturday’s strike, and the first cruise missile reported in this series.

AFP journalists heard a powerful explosion in central Riyadh, and three residents in the north of the city later reported a second blast. “The birds went into a frenzy after the sound. The whole house shook,” a resident of the Al-Aarid neighbourhood told the agency. Residents reported seeing ambulances heading towards the airport, which lies northeast of the capital.

Al Jazeera’s live coverage reported that more people were injured in what it described as a Sunday evening strike on the airport. Neither outlet gives a casualty figure for this attack, and the Daily Mirror’s account reports only the fire. Al Jazeera’s summary also refers to the death toll rising from the attack “a day earlier” — that is, Saturday’s — which should not be read as deaths from Sunday’s strike; no filing attributes a death to it.

A Riyadh Metro official told AFP that the city had suspended transit service to two of the three stations serving the airport, a decision he said would be “reviewed on a daily basis.” That is the first reported disruption to the airport’s ground links, and the daily-review framing is the closest any filing comes to indicating how long the closure may last.

Sequence

The Houthi warning set out above was issued on Sunday, and this strike followed the same day, in the evening. The warning declared Saudi airports “a theatre of operations”; the attack on Terminal 4 is the first incident reported after it. No filing says whether the Houthis have claimed Sunday’s strike, and as with Saturday’s, the coalition attributes it to them rather than reporting a claim.

The Daily Mirror’s account also supplies the wider military context missing from the warning coverage: Saturday’s attack marked a sharp escalation in the Yemen war, in which Saudi Arabia backs the internationally recognised government against the Houthis, who captured swathes of Red Sea coastline in a lightning offensive last month.

Update: the campaign widens to Dammam

A Reuters account carried by Hiru News reports that the Houthis have now struck a second Saudi airport, and it answers several questions the earlier filings left open.

Sunday’s Riyadh strike has a casualty count

One person was killed and 11 wounded in Sunday’s attack on Riyadh’s Terminal 4, the Saudi civil aviation authority said. No filing had attributed a casualty to that strike until now. Saturday’s toll has also been revised upward, to 13 killed and more than 300 wounded.

Dammam

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, in a televised speech on Sunday, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s Riyadh attack and said the group had also struck King Fahd International Airport in Dammam and two Saudi Aramco facilities. The Saudi civil aviation authority confirmed the Dammam strike late on Sunday, saying “damage assessments and safety inspections of airport facilities are under way.” The Saudi government media office and Aramco did not respond to requests for comment on the Aramco claim.

An eyewitness aboard a taxiing aircraft at Dammam told Reuters that at around 8:30pm local time (1730 GMT) a projectile struck the tarmac beside several parked aircraft and started a fire. Their aircraft returned to the gate, passengers disembarked and were told to leave. Flightradar24 showed several delays and cancellations at Dammam, the kingdom’s third-largest airport, on Sunday.

Dammam matters particularly to Sri Lanka. The Eastern Province hosts a large share of the Sri Lankan workforce in the kingdom, and Dammam is where Anojan Sivarasa is held — the Sri Lankan migrant worker moved to a new cell at Dammam Prison this month, whose appeal against a death sentence was filed on 11 October by a legal team stranded in Riyadh by the airport closure.

Air defences and alerts elsewhere

Coalition forces said a drone was intercepted and destroyed over the Eastern Province, and a ballistic missile fired towards Khamis Mushait was intercepted. Emergency alerts were issued in Abha, in the south, early on Monday; the Saudi Civil Defense said the danger had since passed.

Travel advice now covers the whole kingdom

This closes the question of how other states are responding. Britain’s embassy in Saudi Arabia advised British nationals against all but essential travel to Jeddah, Dammam and every airport in the kingdom except Medina. US aviation authorities issued a notice telling US airlines to use caution flying to or over Saudi Arabia. No filing yet reports a second airline suspending flights.

The wider war

The Houthis said Saudi Arabia carried out 124 air strikes in Yemen in 24 hours. “Unless the Saudi enemy stops its aggression and interference in Yemen, worse is yet to come, God willing,” the Houthi-run foreign ministry said in statements carried by Al Masirah television.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said on Telegram that he had told his Saudi counterpart Tehran was ready to help facilitate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Yemen — the first mediation offer reported in this sequence.

A five-day WPC Energy conference opened as planned on Sunday at a convention centre about 10km from Riyadh airport.

Update, 14 October: two more nights over Riyadh

Riyadh has been attacked on two further nights since this article was last updated, Hiru News reported on Wednesday, in copy credited to Arab News.

Late on Tuesday, Saudi air defences destroyed two Houthi cruise missiles over the capital. Falling debris injured four people and damaged around 15 residential homes, according to Civil Defense, which later released images of the damage. Loud explosions were heard across Riyadh shortly before midnight as air defences engaged. Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki, spokesman for the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, said three drones were also destroyed north of Riyadh.

On Wednesday, a ballistic missile was intercepted and destroyed over Riyadh, with fragments falling on the city. Debris injured one resident — described as an Arab resident — and caused limited damage to a house and a vehicle. Civil Defense said emergency procedures were implemented, and Al-Maliki separately confirmed the interception.

Civil Defense then lifted the danger warnings it had issued for Riyadh and Al-Kharj governorate through its National Early Warning Platform.

An Aramco building caught fire at Dhahran — but not the sites claimed on Sunday

The kingdom dealt with a number of ballistic missiles and drones on Tuesday. Missiles aimed at Dhahran and Haradh were stopped, the report says; the Energy Ministry nonetheless said a Saudi Aramco administrative building in Dhahran had been targeted, causing a “limited fire”, with no fatalities or injuries. Those two statements sit awkwardly together, and the filing does not reconcile them.

This is the first time the Saudi government has confirmed that an Aramco site was struck in this campaign. It should not be read as answering the open question below about which two Aramco facilities Yahya Saree claimed on Sunday — Dhahran was hit two days later, and no filing has linked it to that claim.

The dead of 11 October, by nationality

The Saudi aviation authority has given a nationality breakdown for Saturday’s attack on King Khalid International Airport. The dead “included” four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a US citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese.

That accounts for 12 of the 13 killed; the thirteenth is not identified, and the word “included” leaves the list open. No Sri Lankan appears among the 12. Sunday’s single fatality at the same airport is now identified as a Pakistani civilian. Taken together these are the closest thing yet to an answer on Sri Lankan casualties, and the answer is negative — but it is not a complete enumeration, and no Sri Lankan authority has confirmed it.

Saudi authorities also released video of Saturday’s attack, showing civilians — among them pilgrims bound for Makkah and Madinah — waiting for flights before, in the report’s words, “a bright orange flash engulf the terminal”.

The campaign has widened again

The Houthis have also attacked Abha’s international airport and Aden International Airport in Yemen this week. The group restarted the war in July and promised to blockade Saudi oil moving through the Bab Al-Mandab Strait.

The Saudi Cabinet, meeting under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, condemned the attacks and said the Houthis would face consequences, vowing to protect freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and Bab Al-Mandab and backing a coalition operation against the group.

The report places this in a longer pattern of attacks on the kingdom’s energy and religious infrastructure: Saudi Arabia shut its East-West Pipeline in September after it was targeted by Iran-aligned groups in Iraq; a Houthi drone was shot down south of Makkah in September; and earlier this month a drone struck a power station supplying the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah. A missile was intercepted approaching Makkah in 2017.

Not reported

On the two latest attacks. No filing says what was targeted on either night, whether anything was struck beyond the falling debris, or whether the injured were hospitalised. The four injured late on Tuesday and the one injured on Wednesday are not named or described beyond nationality. It is not reported why danger warnings extended to Al-Kharj, some 80km from Riyadh, or what was threatened there. The Houthis are not reported as having claimed either night’s launches.

On Dhahran. No filing reconciles the statement that missiles aimed at Dhahran were stopped with the Energy Ministry’s confirmation that a building there caught fire. The extent of the fire, how long it burned and whether any Aramco operations were affected are all unreported. Aramco itself has still not commented, and which two facilities Saree claimed on 11 October remains unanswered — Dhahran is a separate, later incident.

On Sri Lankans. No Sri Lankan appears in the aviation authority’s list of 12 named dead from Saturday’s attack, but the thirteenth is unidentified and the list is not presented as exhaustive. Neither the Sri Lankan mission in Riyadh nor the Foreign Ministry has confirmed that no Sri Lankan was among the casualties, and no fresh advice to nationals in Riyadh has been reported since the attack.

On the airport and the airspace. No filing says whether Saudi Arabia has closed any airspace, or how long Riyadh airport will stay shut. SriLankan Airlines formally confirmed on Wednesday that its Riyadh and Dammam suspensions run to 18 October; no outlet reports whether that date will hold, and two further nights of attacks on Riyadh since make it look no firmer. A Sri Lankan state legal delegation remains stranded in Riyadh by the closure.

On Terminal 4 (11 October). No outlet gives the extent of the damage, whether the fire was contained, what the projectile was, whether the terminal was in use, or how it relates to the terminal struck the previous day. No filing says whether the Houthis have claimed that strike specifically — Saree’s claim covered Saturday’s attack, Dammam and the Aramco facilities, not Terminal 4.

On Dammam (11 October). No filing reports casualties, the extent of the damage, or whether the airport remained open.

Items previously listed here that have since been answered: the casualty figure for Sunday’s Riyadh strike; how other states are responding; whether the campaign extended beyond Riyadh; the nationality of Sunday’s fatality; and, for Saturday’s attack, the nationalities of 12 of the 13 dead.

The figure for the wounded on 11 October differs across filings — “more than 300” in the Daily Mirror’s DW copy and NewsFirst’s headline, against the 309 given by Saudi authorities and reported here on 10 October.