ANALYSIS
Airport for airport: how the war between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia came back, and what each side wants
11 October 2026 — Yemen / Saudi Arabia
In brief
- On the evening of 10 October an attack on King Khalid airport in Riyadh killed 12 people, including 8 foreigners, and injured 309, according to the Saudi civil aviation authority. It is the deadliest in an escalation that began in July.
- The trigger: on 13 July a strike hit the runway of Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. Yemen's government, allied with Riyadh, claimed it; the Houthis blame Saudi Arabia. Since then the two sides have been hitting each other's airports.
- But the war was not born in July: it has been open since 2014, with Saudi intervention since 2015, frozen by a truce in 2022 and never closed by a peace agreement.
- The Houthis demand an end to the air and sea blockade, public-sector salaries, the withdrawal of foreign forces and control of the country's resources. Saudi Arabia wants to defend its territory and restore the recognised government. Washington has so far refused to intervene.
- It concerns people far away too: with Hormuz down to a fraction of its traffic, Gulf oil increasingly leaves through the Red Sea, and the Houthis are striking precisely those ports.
On the evening of Saturday 10 October, at King Khalid airport in Riyadh, Terminal 3 was evacuated amid ambulances and helicopters. The next day the Saudi civil aviation authority gave the figures: 12 dead, four Saudis and eight foreigners including an American, and 309 injured, some seriously (ANSA). The news bulletins condemned the attack, as they should. Almost no one explained why a Yemeni armed movement fires missiles at the Saudi capital, or what it asks for in order to stop. We try to do that.
The facts
It is the third attack on Saudi airports in a week. On 6 and 7 October strikes on Riyadh and Abha had killed a Sudanese man, a Moroccan woman and an Algerian woman and injured 36 people; on 8 October three Saudis died in Riyadh, including a Saudia airline captain (Khaleej Times). The Houthis' military spokesman, Yahya Saree, claimed those attacks and warned airlines that every aircraft in Saudi airspace is a target, except those bound for Mecca and Medina (Al Jazeera).
For 10 October the Houthis claimed strikes on "sensitive sites" in Riyadh and on Aramco facilities in Yanbu, without naming the airport, as a response to Saudi attempts to hit Sanaa (AFP, via TNND). The type of missile and Terminal 3 as the point of impact come from anonymous sources quoted by AFP and the Wall Street Journal (ANSA): they are not officially confirmed.
How we got here
The Houthis (who they are, in our Glossary) are an armed movement born in the 1990s in northern Yemen. Since 2014 they have controlled the capital, and since then the war has never ended (Council on Foreign Relations).
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2004-2010 | Six wars between the Houthis and the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. |
| September 2014 | The Houthis take Sanaa. |
| March 2015 | A coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervenes on behalf of the recognised government. In April UN Security Council resolution 2216 demands that the Houthis withdraw and imposes an arms embargo on them (UN). |
| End of 2021 | According to the UN Development Programme, the war has caused 377,000 deaths, 60% from hunger and disease (Al Jazeera). |
| April 2022 | UN-brokered truce. It expires in October but holds in practice: the Houthis stop striking Saudi Arabia (DAWN). |
| December 2023 | The UN envoy announces the parties' commitments to a "roadmap": ceasefire, public-sector salaries, oil exports, reopening of roads, ports and the airport (UN News). The plan stalls with the Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, launched over the war in Gaza. US strikes follow in 2025 (here). |
The trigger of 13 July. That day a strike hits the runway of Sanaa airport and prevents an Iranian plane carrying a senior Houthi delegation from landing; after Omani mediation the plane lands in Hodeidah (AP, via Al-Ahram). Who struck is disputed. AP speaks of a Saudi strike and the Houthis blame Riyadh; the defence ministry of Yemen's government, in Aden, says instead that its own forces did it. Saudi Arabia has not commented (Al-Monitor). The government says the flight was carrying personnel and dual-use equipment: an accusation not independently verified, to which Tehran has not replied (The National). From there the spiral: missiles on Abha airport, the naval blockade declared by the Houthis on 20 July (here), offensives towards Taiz and Bab el-Mandeb, then the airports. By early October more than 200,000 people had been displaced in this new phase, according to the International Organization for Migration (Al Jazeera).
Why it concerns everyone: two straits
Before the war with Iran, which began on 28 February, about 125 large commercial vessels passed through Hormuz every day; on Tuesday 6 October, according to Kpler data, there were seven commercial vessels, the lowest number since July (Reuters, via AAP; here our piece on the strait). Oil has found other outlets: 6.7 million barrels a day leave from the Gulf of Oman coast and the Red Sea, more than double the pre-war level (Reuters, via AAP). For Saudi Arabia the outlet is Yanbu, on the Red Sea. According to Kpler data, between March and July 2026 an average of 3.8 million barrels a day left Yanbu, about five times the earlier level; in August, as Houthi attacks resumed, 1.5 million (AFP, via Al-Ahram). In September an attack halted exports from Yanbu for a week. General traffic in the Red Sea, on the other hand, is holding up: 280 ships a week at Bab el-Mandeb in the month to 27 September, against 316 in June (Lloyd's List Intelligence). The Houthis deny wanting to close the strait; according to the Institute for the Study of War their target is Saudi Arabia's ability to export oil (AFP, via Al-Ahram).
The risk, then, is not a total blockade today. It is that both outlets for Gulf oil remain under threat at the same time.
What the parties want
We report the declared positions, not attributed motives.
| Party | What it says it wants |
|---|---|
| Houthis | On 19 August they said the only way out for Riyadh is to lift the blockade, implement the measures already agreed to end the conflict, pay salaries, withdraw foreign forces and leave natural resources to Yemenis (Shafaq News). The statement does not say which measures: the only agreed measures made public are those of the 2023 UN roadmap. According to the International Crisis Group, they have moved from asking for confidence-building measures, such as salaries, to presenting the conflict as a question of sovereignty over airspace, ports and waters (AP, via Al-Ahram). |
| Saudi Arabia and the coalition | To defend Saudi territory and "Yemen's sovereignty", meaning that of the recognised government. Riyadh rejects the accusation of a siege and says it let more than 300 ships through to Houthi ports in the first half of 2026 (here). In September Mohammed bin Salman asked Trump, in two phone calls in a single day, to strike the Houthis (Axios). |
| Yemen's recognised government | The restoration of its authority over the country, on the basis of resolution 2216. It is divided: between December 2025 and January 2026 southern separatists attempted a secession that Riyadh attributes to support from the Emirates (here). |
| Iran | An ally of the Houthis. We found no official statements from Tehran on the attacks on the airports. The Houthis present the escalation as a Yemeni war, not as a front of the Iran war (AP, via Al-Ahram). |
| United States | No intervention so far: Trump offered only intelligence and targeting data, fearing, according to a former Pentagon official, a Houthi reaction at Bab el-Mandeb and a rise in oil prices (Axios). After 10 October he called the attack "not acceptable": "We'll make a decision" (ANSA). |
| Pakistan | Islamabad's foreign ministry spokesman said Pakistani troops will not cross the border to attack the Houthis but will act in defence of the territory (Al Jazeera). |
Legal reading and symmetry test
Airports are civilian objects, in Riyadh as in Sanaa. International humanitarian law requires states and armed groups always to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects (ICRC, rule 7). A civilian airport loses protection only if it is used for military purposes, and even then an attack must not cause civilian harm that is excessive in relation to the expected advantage. A missile on a terminal, with 12 dead and 309 injured, is hard to justify by this standard; the same goes for the threat against any civilian aircraft in Saudi skies. But the rule also applies to the runway in Sanaa. Yemen's government says the flight was carrying military equipment: if this were proven, the embargo in resolution 2216 would give the action a basis. But there is no public evidence, and an unproven accusation does not turn a civilian airport into a target.
The blockade. The one declared by the Houthis and the one the Houthis attribute to Riyadh follow the same rules: a blockade is unlawful if it starves civilians or if the harm to civilians is excessive in relation to the military advantage. For both, independent verification is lacking.
The condemnations. The October attacks were condemned by the United Nations and by many governments (Aviation Week), including Qatar, Oman, Egypt (Al Jazeera) and the Emirates (Khaleej Times); after 10 October the UN envoy Hans Grundberg spoke of a grave escalation (ANSA). Saudi Arabia and Yemen's government asked the Security Council to act (Al Jazeera). The strike on the Sanaa runway was not explicitly condemned by anyone at the Security Council on 14 July: the UN warned that unilateral measures do not bring peace closer, the United States blamed Iran (The National). And the same yardstick applies to the whole war: more than 25,000 coalition air strikes since 2015, with nearly 19,000 civilians killed according to the Council on Foreign Relations; the Houthi siege of the city of Taiz, which began in 2016 (AFP, via Naharnet).
Editorial judgement
This section expresses the site's position. It is separate from the facts set out above.
Condemning a missile on an airport is a duty, and we reaffirm it. But a condemnation without context makes the war look like an outburst of madness. This war has a long history and precise demands, many of which were already written into the UN roadmap of 2023: salaries, ports, the airport, oil. The parties had said yes to it, and in August the Houthis asked for the measures already agreed to be implemented. Then Gaza, then the war with Iran, then a runway hit to stop a flight.
There is also a lesson about selective memory. Hitting the runway in Sanaa and hitting the terminal in Riyadh are acts of the same kind, even if with very different consequences: using a civilian airport to punish the adversary. Al Jazeera's correspondent in Sanaa summed up the logic declared by the Houthis like this: "airport for airport". Whoever condemns one and stays silent about the other is not defending the law: they are choosing a side.
One question remains about Washington. Trump said no to Riyadh for months, out of fear of a new front and of the price of oil, according to the sources. The midterm elections in November may be another reason, but no source we have read documents it: we flag it only as a hypothesis. After 10 October that caution could end. If the United States enters this war, it is worth remembering that a document already exists to which both sides had said yes.
What to watch
- Trump's decision on an intervention alongside Saudi Arabia.
- An explicit Houthi claim for 10 October and the official Saudi report on Terminal 3.
- Exports from Yanbu and traffic at Bab el-Mandeb.
- The fighting around Taiz and Mokha and the number of displaced people.
- The initiatives of the UN envoy and of Oman to reopen negotiations.
Sources: ANSA · Khaleej Times · Al Jazeera · AFP, via TNND · Council on Foreign Relations · UN · Al Jazeera · DAWN · UN News · AP, via Al-Ahram · Al-Monitor · The National · Reuters, via AAP · AFP, via Al-Ahram · Lloyd's List Intelligence · Shafaq News · Axios · Al Jazeera · ICRC, rule 7 · Aviation Week · Khaleej Times · AFP, via Naharnet
Related pieces: Houthis (Ansar Allah): who they are, where they come from, what they want · Yemen: war intensifies again and fuels child recruitment, as the UN warns of famine risk · Yemen: 73 UN staff still arbitrarily detained by the Houthis, as Hodeidah bleeds again · Trump threatens Iran's water and power plants. It wouldn't be the first time — and it would be a war crime.