Houthi strikes on Abha International Airport and on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh killed three people and wounded 36 over the past 48 hours, the Saudi civil aviation authority reported. The Yemeni militia has told international airlines to keep out of Saudi airspace. Before the war, Riyadh opened that airspace to civilian flights to and from Israel.
The airline warning came from Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree in a statement posted on X on October 6. In the same statement, Saree claimed three operations. According to Saree, the first hit King Khalid International and disrupted air traffic. He said the second struck an Aramco refinery in Rabigh, on the Red Sea coast, and started a fire.
Saree said the third operation targeted Abha International Airport, the Khamis Mushait air base and a military camp in the southern Asir region. He said it also hit what he called sensitive sites in Najran and Jizan, near the Yemeni border. These claims of strikes across the kingdom came from the Iran-backed group itself.
