12 Killed, 309 Wounded As a Missile Hits Riyadh’S Airport Terminal

A missile hit a passenger terminal at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday 10 October, killing 12 people and wounding 309, Saudi aviation authorities said early on Sunday. The dead were four Saudis, two Bangladeshis and one person each from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt. Some of the wounded are in critical condition, and doctors were called in from across the city.

The first reports were far lower. The New York Times initially counted 12 dead and 50 injured, and the @visegrad24 post that spread the final toll on X carried the new number within hours. A witness described the moments after the blast to CNA:

“I saw injured in front of my eyes. Everyone was running.”

— Eyewitness at King Khalid International Airport, quoted by CNA

Reuters says it was the third attack on Riyadh’s main airport this week. A strike on Wednesday killed a Sudanese man, and two strikes on Thursday killed three people, including a Saudia pilot, and badly damaged a parked passenger jet. This time, Reuters reports, no warning was issued by the kingdom’s threat alert system. Operations were suspended and flights diverted. The coalition also reported attacks on Dammam and Al-Kharj around midnight.

Who is behind it

The Saudi-led coalition blamed Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis. Its spokesman, Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, called the strike a civilian-terminal attack and promised a decisive response:

“A full-fledged war crime.”

— Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, Saudi-led coalition spokesman

The Houthis claimed the Thursday strikes. For Saturday, they have not commented directly, though their media chief wrote on X that the group had “shut down Riyadh international airport”, according to Reuters. The group has declared Saudi airspace a military zone since the Saudi-backed Yemeni government launched an offensive against it on Monday.

It is the deadliest attack in the kingdom since a suicide bomber killed 21 worshippers at a Shia mosque in Qatif in May 2015. Analysts expect the toll to raise Saudi pressure on allies, above all the United States, for military support.