Houthi missiles and drones targeted Riyadh and southern Saudi cities on October 25, 2026, as Saudi Arabia prepared to reopen King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh after a two-week closure. The Houthi attacks on Riyadh airport and other Saudi targets come as the fighting in Yemen widens.
Riyadh’s airport said flights would resume on October 25, according to The Hindu. It remained unclear how operational the airport was when it reopened, the report said.
The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted a ballistic missile and two drones launched toward Riyadh, and a cruise missile fired at Khamis Mushait, according to the Straits Times. The coalition later said it intercepted ten ballistic missiles fired toward southern Saudi Arabia.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the airport remains a "military target." According to The Hindu, he warned airlines, staff and travellers against using it, and said the Saudi regime "shall bear the consequences."
A Houthi attack on Riyadh’s airport earlier this month killed 13 people and wounded more than 300, according to The Hindu. It was the deadliest attack in the kingdom in more than a decade.
The US Embassy in Riyadh and the US Mission to the UAE said Washington’s travel advisories were updated to reflect an increase in potential Houthi armed attacks, according to Dawn.
In Yemen, the Interior Ministry said three Houthi ballistic missiles struck coast guard sites in Aden on Saturday, two hitting the coast guard headquarters and one a building in the Tawahi district, according to Dawn. Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Sanaa and Hodeida on Saturday killed at least 16 people, according to Houthi media, also cited by Dawn.
The fighting followed the collapse of a years-long truce between the Houthis and Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government, according to The Hindu. The Hindu also reported that the conflict has shifted the focus of the wider U.S.-Iran war.
Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 at the head of a coalition backing the internationally recognised government, after the Houthis seized Sanaa a year earlier, the Straits Times reported. The Houthis seized strategic territory along the Red Sea coast in September, and the renewed fighting has shattered a UN-brokered truce that had largely held since 2022, according to the same report.
The accounts differ on whether Houthi missiles fell near the holy cities. Saudi civil defence said it responded to falling debris in the Makkah and Madina regions on October 24 after intercepting two Houthi missiles, according to Dawn. The Houthis denied targeting the two cities and called the Saudi claim a "huge lie," according to The Hindu.
Several key points rest on a single outlet or lack independent confirmation. The Houthi claims of strikes on an Aramco facility in Yanbu, the Rabigh refinery, pumping stations and the East-West Pipeline have no Saudi confirmation and come only from Dawn. Casualty figures from the Sanaa and Hodeida strikes come from Houthi media and are unverified by independent sources. Dawn’s reporting on Aden relays Yemeni Interior Ministry and police accounts without independent verification. The sources also contain no response from the Saudi government to the Houthi threat against the airport.
Watch whether flights at Riyadh airport continue despite the Houthi warnings, whether the coalition’s interceptions continue, and whether Egypt, Britain or France follow through on offers of troops or forces to protect Saudi Arabia.
Sources
This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.