Houthis claim a missile hit Riyadh’s main airport, which Saudi Arabia has not confirmed, as US tightens airport rules


Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greeting Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa in Riyadh on November 4, 2026

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman receives Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa in Riyadh on November 4, 2026, the same day the Houthis claimed a missile strike on the city’s main airport. Photo: Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (@KSAmofaEN) via X

Yemen’s Houthis said on Wednesday that a ballistic missile struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, a claim Saudi Arabia did not confirm, hours after an early warning alert sounded over the capital.

The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said the missile scored a direct hit on the airport and caused significant damage, and he declared the airport “unsafe,” urging airlines to avoid Saudi airspace except over Mecca and Medina, according to a summary of his statement by the news site Drop Site. He also claimed a drone strike on a radar on the Al Qahma peninsula north of Jazan, a missile on a Border Guard command building in Jazan, a missile on the Aakifa military camp in Najran and six missiles on Saudi backed forces in the east of Yemen’s Al Jawf province, and said Houthi forces shot down a Saudi Wing Loong 2 drone over Taiz, the tenth of its type since the fighting escalated.

Saudi Arabia has not confirmed the claim and has not commented on it, and by Thursday morning Mereja Media still found no statement from the Saudi led coalition or the civil aviation authority about any impact at the airport. What is on record is the alert. Saudi Civil Defense said the National Early Warning Platform issued a warning for Riyadh Province at about 2:49 AM local time on Wednesday, and declared about nine minutes later that “the danger has passed,” telling residents to keep following instructions and to avoid gathering and filming. A similar all clear was issued for Jazan Province later that morning.

The rest of Wednesday in Riyadh looked like business as usual at the top. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa at the palace and the two witnessed the signing of agreements, the Saudi foreign ministry said. An account that follows the deputy governor of Riyadh Region, Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, posted photos in the evening of the prince seeing al Sharaa off at King Khalid International Airport, the same airport the Houthis said they had hit.

The United States is not taking chances. In a security alert first issued on November 2 and repeated on November 3, the US Mission in Saudi Arabia said the Houthis had attacked civilian airports and other infrastructure, causing civilian casualties and severe travel disruption, and that these hostilities “have the potential to escalate rapidly.” It said US government employees now need special authorization from the chief of mission to use any airport in the kingdom, and it told American citizens to “take extreme caution if you choose to use airports in Saudi Arabia.” The State Department ordered non emergency staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia from October 23. The alert said King Khalid airport had partially reopened on October 23 for domestic flights and some international flights by national carriers, with a limited number of Riyadh flights moved to Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Qassim.

The airport was attacked before, Saudi authorities have said. The Indian embassy said this week that a second Indian national had died of wounds from the October 10 attack on the Riyadh airport, bringing the death toll from that attack to 14 by a count of Arab News, while the General Authority of Civil Aviation had at first announced 12 dead and 309 wounded, the Arabic news account Moujez Al Arab reported.

On Saudi social media, the mood mixed defiance with unease. Jalawi Al Rashid (@Alyami2030P), a Saudi commentator on international affairs, wrote that the skies and land of the Gulf had taken on an international character, with British and French warplanes in the air, Pakistani, Turkish and Italian forces on the ground, Ukrainian interceptor drones and South Korean air defense batteries on standby. A Saudi user named Salem (@coolleeree) recalled in a reply that when the airport first closed, flights were diverted to Qassim, whose airport could not cope, and a round of football matches had to be postponed. Houthi supporters, meanwhile, mocked the kingdom. “Riyadh airport is closed, whether some people like it or not,” wrote Mohammed Sharib (@sharbb7). Flight tracking on Wednesday evening showed departures and arrivals continuing at King Khalid after the claim, according to AeroCorner, which cited FlightAware. By Thursday morning Mereja Media still found no Saudi confirmation of a hit or damage, and could not confirm whether the airport was closed at any point on Wednesday.

Analysts on X linked the timing to events far from Yemen. AJ Signal (@aj_geo_analysis), whose profile describes its author as a former military officer and geopolitics strategist, noted that the claim came hours after the US midterm elections and on the same morning that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed tankers had burned on mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and argued that Tehran was pulling on both straits, Hormuz and Bab el Mandeb, at once while keeping its own hand off Saudi soil.

The war between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia has escalated since late summer, with missiles and drones aimed at Saudi airports, oil sites and cities, and Saudi strikes and shelling inside Yemen, as Mereja Media has reported. On October 30, Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles over Riyadh and that shrapnel had injured a resident, as Mereja Media reported.

Sources

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