Houthis claim fresh ballistic missile strike on Riyadh airport as Iran offers mediation

Yemen's Houthi group claimed responsibility for a fresh ballistic missile strike on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport and a drone attack on a Saudi air base, while the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted the missile. As hostilities escalate with heavy casualties reported on both sides, Iran has renewed its offer to facilitate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.

Sanaa/Riyadh: Yemen’s Houthi group said that it had launched a new ballistic missile strike on King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh, while Tehran reiterated its readiness to facilitate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a statement on Monday evening that the group targeted the Riyadh airport with a ballistic missile, claiming the missile “accurately hit” the target, Xinhua news agency reported.

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He said the group also launched a drone attack on King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait, southwestern Saudi Arabia, claiming a direct hit.

Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition said in a statement that its forces had intercepted and destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile fired toward Riyadh on Monday evening.

Explosions were heard in the Saudi capital around the time of the reported attack, and residents received alerts via mobile apps.

The Houthi group has intensified strikes on the Riyadh airport in recent days.

Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said Monday that a Pakistani resident was killed and 11 others injured in a strike targeting the airport Sunday afternoon.

The authority said it had extended the suspension of operations at the airport.

A Saturday Houthi strike on the airport killed 12 people and injured 309 others, according to the authority.

Also on Monday, the Houthis said Saudi Arabia had carried out 119 strikes on several Houthi-held areas over the past 24 hours.

Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported that at least nine people were killed and seven others injured in airstrikes on Al-Jawf, a province near the border with Saudi Arabia.

Yemeni military spokesperson Majid al-Nuzaili said in the day that government forces had carried out 1,879 attacks on Houthi military targets in recent hours, claiming that about 950 Houthi fighters had been “neutralized.”

The escalation has sparked mounting regional and international concern.

At a weekly press conference on Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran has “repeatedly expressed readiness to use our good offices to facilitate dialogue between the (warring) parties.”

His remarks came a day after Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, in a phone conversation with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah Al Saud on Sunday, voiced Iran’s readiness to provide “any kind of assistance” to help initiate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.

Yemen has been mired in conflict since late 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 in support of the Yemeni government. The renewed fighting marked a major escalation after a UN-brokered truce in 2022 largely halted major hostilities.