Houthi Strikes on Riyadh and Abha Airports Kill Three, Injure a Pakistani Resident

Houthi missiles and drones hit two Saudi airports within a day of each other this week, killing three people and wounding dozens in the clearest sign yet that Yemen's civil war is spilling directly onto Saudi civilian infrastructure — and, with a Pakistani resident among the injured, onto a conflict Pakistan itself is now formally committed to.

What was hit

Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said strikes on October 6 and 7 hit King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the kingdom's busiest, and Abha International Airport near the Yemeni border. GACA put the toll at three dead and 36 injured: a Sudanese man killed in the Riyadh attack, and two women — one Moroccan, one Algerian — killed at Abha, where 28 of the injured were recorded. Five Saudi nationals, two Egyptians and one Pakistani resident were among the wounded. The Houthis claimed both strikes, and a Houthi spokesman, Yahya Saree, followed up with a warning to airlines "for the last time" to stop flying into Saudi airspace. A separate strike the group claimed against King Khalid International on October 8 killed one person and wounded eight more, according to preliminary reports Saudi authorities had not yet confirmed as of this writing.

The fallout moved fast

Airlines reacted within hours. IndiGo, Air India and Philippine Airlines all suspended flights to Riyadh, Philippine Airlines through at least October 11, and other carriers trimmed schedules as insurers reassessed risk on routes into the Saudi capital. The US Mission in Saudi Arabia issued a security alert warning American citizens of further drone and missile attacks and cautioning that the conflict could widen. In response, the Saudi-led coalition said it had struck 82 Houthi military targets, and Houthi forces separately claimed a missile strike on Aden, the seat of Yemen's internationally recognised government.

Why Pakistan isn't a bystander here

Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkiye on August 7, 2026, a pact declaring that an attack on any one signatory is an attack on all three. We covered the pact's build-out, including the appointment of its first Secretary General, and the escalating chain of Houthi attacks that has tested it since: a drone strike on Madina's Taibah power station in late September, which Pakistan's Foreign Office condemned as a "grave provocation", and an October 5 emergency meeting in Riyadh at which Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye agreed to the "rapid deployment" of military forces inside the kingdom. This week's airport strikes are the most direct hit yet on civilian life and international air traffic, rather than military or energy infrastructure, and they landed just a day before Pakistan's military spokesman went on record for the first time about what Pakistani forces are actually doing inside Saudi Arabia.

The question this leaves open

GACA's casualty breakdown — nationals of five different countries hurt in a single set of strikes at two airports — underscores how far the Houthi campaign now reaches beyond a localised Yemen-Saudi border conflict. For Pakistan, a government resident among the wounded turns a treaty commitment into something with a direct, if indirect, human cost at home. Whether Thursday's claimed third strike on King Khalid International holds up once Saudi authorities confirm or deny it will be the next marker of whether this de-escalates or keeps intensifying.

Build Better Pakistan's Foreign Desk is tracking the Houthi-Saudi conflict and Pakistan's commitments under the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement as they develop.