Houthis Strike Riyadh Airport and Aramco as Saudi Strikes Kill 33 Near Sanaa

Houthis strike Riyadh airport and Aramco oil facilities in a wave of missile and drone attacks, the group said on Sunday, as Saudi-led air strikes killed 33 people, including 13 children, in a village near Yemen’s capital Sanaa, Houthi health officials said.

FAKTA

• Death toll: At least 33 people killed and 39 wounded in strikes on al-Shariya village in the Bani Hushaysh district, about 15km northeast of Sanaa, on Saturday. The dead include 12 men, eight women and 13 children, according to the Houthi-run Health Ministry.
• Houthi claim: The group says it carried out six missile and drone operations against Saudi targets, including King Khalid airport in Riyadh and Aramco oil facilities.
• Saudi response: The Saudi-led coalition says its air defences destroyed three ballistic missiles aimed at the kingdom, two of them towards Riyadh. Saudi Arabia says it is investigating the report of the Sanaa toll.
• Verification: Reuters and Al Jazeera said they could not independently verify the Houthi account of the strikes.
• Wider toll: The United Nations says more than 1,600 people have been killed and almost 300,000 displaced since fighting resumed in July.

Houthis strike Riyadh airport and Aramco facilities

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group carried out six operations using a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, some targeting facilities inside neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

Saree said the first attack targeted King Khalid airport, oil storage tanks and a distillation tower belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco — all in the Saudi capital Riyadh. The second targeted an Aramco facility in Khurais in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, and the third targeted a pumping station in the Dawadmi area west of Riyadh.

The remaining three operations targeted Saudi military positions, including a National Guard camp in Najran and troop positions in Marib and Al-Jawf, Saree said. The group described the operations as retaliation for what it called deadly Saudi strikes on civilians in Taiz and Bani Hushaysh.

Saudi coalition says it intercepted missiles aimed at Riyadh

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis says its air defences destroyed three ballistic missiles launched by the Iran-aligned armed group towards the kingdom.

Two of the missiles were launched towards the kingdom’s capital, Riyadh, Major-General Turki al-Maliki, the coalition’s spokesperson, said in a post on X on Sunday. Earlier, he confirmed another interception of a ballistic missile launched towards the kingdom’s Eastern Province.

Multiple loud booms were heard in the Saudi capital shortly after civil defence issued an early-warning alert of a potential threat, a Reuters witness said. Saudi civil defence later lifted alerts in several areas of the oil-rich Eastern Province, including Dhahran, home to the headquarters of Aramco, shortly after warning of potential danger.

Saree also claimed that the coalition had carried out 105 air strikes and missile attacks over 24 hours targeting Sanaa and seven other governorates, taking the total number of strikes since the escalation began to 4,369.

One of the deadliest strikes since fighting resumed

The strikes on al-Shariya hit homes in the farming village on Saturday, Houthi-run health ministry spokesman Anees Alasbahi said. He said civilians were still buried under the rubble of houses hit in the strikes and that subsequent strikes targeted emergency workers as they tried to pull survivors out of the wreckage. The attacks targeted homes, roads, paramedics and civil defence teams in the village, he said.

Footage from Houthi-run Al Masirah television of the aftermath showed staff carrying the bodies of young children from ambulances bringing the casualties to a local hospital. One little girl had serious head injuries, and other children lay on stretchers, bloodied and bandaged, as staff tended to them.

The toll from the same strike was first reported as 22, then raised to 25 on Saturday, before reaching 33 on Sunday. Watan News reported on Saturday that the toll from the strike stood at 25. The strikes are among the deadliest reported since fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned group resumed in July.

Reuters could not independently verify the Houthi account. Saudi Arabia’s Center for International Communication said it was investigating the report, and there was no immediate comment from the Saudi-led coalition on the reported strikes.

Fighting has escalated since July

The renewed fighting has shattered a 2022 UN-brokered truce that largely halted attacks between the Saudi-led coalition and the group, which controls Sanaa. The Houthis have since launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports and oil facilities, while Riyadh has carried out air strikes in Yemen in support of its Yemeni allies.

Yemeni government forces launched the Dawn of Yemen operation last month, aimed at retaking Houthi-held territory, including the capital, Sanaa. In September, the Houthis seized much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast in a lightning offensive, while government forces launched a campaign to reclaim Houthi-held territory in October.

On Friday, an attack on a market in Taiz province killed 30 people. The Houthis blamed it on Saudi air strikes, while Yemeni government forces accused the Iran-aligned group of firing a ballistic missile at the site.