Houthi drone strikes on Saudi airports kill three, wound 36, aviation authority says
Saudi Arabia's aviation authority says Houthi drone attacks on Abha and Riyadh airports killed three people and wounded 36.
Three people have been killed and 36 injured in Houthi attacks on two Saudi airports, according to a statement from Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), in a marked escalation of the cross-border conflict.
Abha International Airport, near the Yemen border, was hit on Tuesday, killing two female residents — one Moroccan and one Algerian — and wounding 28 others, including Saudi citizens and Bangladeshi and Filipino residents, Al Jazeera reported.
A separate attack on Wednesday on King Khalid International Airport in the capital, Riyadh, killed a Sudanese resident and injured eight people, including five Saudi citizens, two Egyptian residents and one Pakistani resident, CNN reported.
The Houthi-controlled armed forces claimed responsibility for both strikes, saying they had targeted the airports with ballistic missiles and drones and warning international airlines that Saudi airspace had become “a theatre for our military operations”.
Saudi military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki said Saudi forces had destroyed the ballistic missile launcher used in the Riyadh attack, adding that it had been struck in Sanaa while preparations were under way for another imminent attack, CNN reported.
The attacks prompted the US Mission in Saudi Arabia to issue a security alert warning American citizens of potential drone and missile attacks, flight cancellations and travel disruptions.
The strikes come as Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces press ahead with Operation “Dawn of Yemen”, an offensive aimed at rolling back recent Houthi gains, CNN reported.
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