RIYADH, October 12, 2026 — An unidentified projectile struck Terminal 4 of Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on Sunday, igniting a fire that killed one person and wounded eleven others, Saudi authorities said, marking the second deadly strike on the airport in 24 hours and deepening the worst security crisis to hit the kingdom in more than a decade.
The Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said the dead victim was a Pakistani resident of the kingdom, while the injured were rushed to hospital for treatment. Damage to the terminal was still being assessed late Sunday, the authority added.
Second Strike in 24 Hours
Saturday’s attack on the airport — claimed by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement — killed 13 people and wounded more than 300, many of them foreign nationals. The kingdom has since closed the airport, the deadliest attack on Saudi soil since the Iran war began.
The combined death toll from the two back-to-back strikes now stands at 13, with some 320 injured. The airport has been hit four times in the past five days, coalition officials said.
Major General Turki Al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, told reporters on Sunday that an unidentified projectile had scored a direct hit on Terminal 4. “The coalition also intercepted and destroyed a cruise missile in the vicinity of the airport,” he added.
Defences Intercepted More Threats
Coalition forces said Saudi air defences intercepted a cruise missile near the airport and destroyed a drone in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. A ballistic missile launched toward Khamis Mushait was also intercepted, officials said.
The Saudi Civil Defence said emergency alerts were issued in Abha, in the south, early on Monday, but the danger had since passed.
Houthis Claim More Targets
In a televised address on Sunday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for Saturday’s strike and said the group had also struck the airport in Dammam and two Saudi Aramco facilities in retaliation for what he called 124 Saudi air raids.
Saree warned that all Saudi airports were now targets “except Mecca and Medina,” demanding that the kingdom immediately stop using its airspace. The anti-Houthi coalition called the airport attack a “full-fledged war crime” and vowed a decisive response.
Travel Chaos, Warnings Spread
The airport has remained closed since Saturday. Etihad, Emirates, flydubai and Air Arabia cancelled flights to and from Riyadh on Sunday, with further cancellations announced for Monday, according to flight-tracking data.
The US embassy in Riyadh told American citizens to avoid the airport and surrounding areas, while the UK Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel to Jeddah, Dammam and every Saudi airport except Medina. Authorities in Riyadh also ordered schools to switch to remote learning as a precaution.
With the coalition vowing retaliation and the Houthis promising further strikes, analysts say the back-to-back attacks have exposed gaps in the kingdom’s air defences even as its air campaign against the Houthis intensifies.
