Three people have been killed and 36 wounded in Houthi attacks on two Saudi Arabian airports over Tuesday and Wednesday, Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said, as Yemen's renewed civil war spread across the border into the kingdom.
Two women, of Moroccan and Algerian nationality, were killed and 28 people wounded at Abha International Airport, near the Yemeni border, the authority said in a statement on Wednesday. A Sudanese man was killed and eight people wounded at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The authority said the attacks happened on 6 and 7 October but did not say which airport was hit first, and it did not name who was responsible.
The Houthis did. Their military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said the group had struck both airports with ballistic missiles and drones in "response to the Saudi aggression against our country", which he said had involved "60 airstrikes and missile attacks in the past 24 hours". He also claimed a missile strike on Aden's airport in southern Yemen early on Wednesday. Aden security authorities said two missiles targeted the airport and caused no casualties.
The Saudi-led coalition said late on Wednesday that the airport attacks "will not go unpunished" and that it had hit more than 80 Houthi military sites across the Saada, Al Hudaydah, Al Jawf and Ma'rib governorates. Neither side's account of the strikes has been independently verified.
The fighting turns on the Red Sea coast. About a month ago the Houthis, who hold most of Yemen's north-west, seized stretches of the coastline including the port of Mokha on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow southern entrance to the Red Sea through which about 12 per cent of global trade passes. Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have since launched a ground and air offensive to take the territory back and say they have "secured" the strait.
Washington is involved. Officials have said US support for the offensive includes intelligence sharing, target identification and planning, according to the Associated Press. The strait has taken on more weight since the Iran war began, because Red Sea routes are an alternative for shipping that would otherwise pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
The human cost is reported in two sets of figures. The United Nations said earlier in the week that almost 1,000 people had been killed in the latest fighting and almost 175,000 displaced, according to the AP. On Wednesday the UN said more than 200,000 people had now been displaced. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned "the continued Houthi cross-border attacks" and said he was "deeply concerned by the sharp escalation in fighting".
The escalation has revived a civil war that had been held in check by a four-year ceasefire. Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Malki has pledged "full operational support" to Yemeni government forces until the Houthis are "eliminated", and the coalition says 100 fighter jets are involved.
