Loud booms were heard in Riyadh on Thursday and flights at King Khalid International Airport were disrupted, as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis stepped up their strikes on the Saudi capital. The Houthis said they had fired a ballistic missile at the airport and repeated a threat to force Saudi airspace to close.
Saudi authorities said on Wednesday that three people had been killed this week in strikes on Riyadh airport and Abha airport in the kingdom’s southwest. Several multinational firms in Riyadh’s King Abdullah Financial District told staff to work from home after the booms, and some schools told parents to shelter in place, although no public alert was issued.
India’s embassy in Riyadh advised its nationals in the kingdom to remain alert, stay indoors as necessary, follow instructions from local authorities, and avoid sharing videos or reports of the events.
Yemen’s civil war, paused by a ceasefire in 2022, has flared again in recent weeks, with the Houthis seizing stretches of the Red Sea coast near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Saudi-backed forces launched a counteroffensive this week, and the renewed fighting has displaced about 200,000 people.
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