Riyadh airport hit again: why one hub was struck three times in a week

A missile struck King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh on Saturday, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 300, according to Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation. At the latest count, at least 309 people were wounded, some in critical condition.

The dead included four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi nationals, and one person each from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt. A regional official told the AP the missile hit a complex housing terminals 3 and 4, which handle domestic flights. Airport operations were suspended, flights diverted, entrances blocked by police, and lights around the complex dimmed.

The strike was the third attack on the same airport in a single week. An earlier assault on Thursday killed at least three Saudi nationals, including a pilot, according to GACA.

The Saudi-led coalition condemned the attack as a "full-fledged war crime." Coalition spokesperson Major-General Turki al-Malki said the alliance would respond decisively in accordance with international humanitarian law. US President Donald Trump called the attack "terrible" and said the US may join Saudi strikes on the Houthis. The Chinese Embassy said no Chinese nationals were reported killed or injured.

Two things distinguish this strike from the week's earlier ones. First, the sequence: three attacks on the same international hub within days, which signals that a major airport can be disrupted repeatedly rather than once. Second, the scale of confirmed deaths. Reporting describes it as the deadliest attack in any Gulf Arab country since the Iran war began and the deadliest on the kingdom in more than a decade.

The confirmed toll now stands at 12 dead and at least 309 wounded.

Open questions remain: whether the US will join Saudi strikes and in what capacity; how the coalition's promised response will take shape; and how long airport operations will stay suspended. The strike marks a widening of a conflict that has increasingly spilled across Yemen's borders since reigniting in July.