A missile attack claimed by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Thursday, killing three Saudi civilians, one of them a Saudia Airlines captain, according to CBS News. The strike came as fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government escalated sharply, and as Iran's Revolutionary Guard struck a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthis said they targeted the airport multiple times this week, including on Thursday. The group had warned international airlines on Monday that flying over Saudi Arabia would be unsafe while what it calls Saudi aggression against Yemen continues, and its Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center said the kingdom's airspace would be a theater for operations by its armed forces. The center added that it would accept no responsibility after the announcement for anything that happened to aircraft.
Why it matters
The airport strike and the Houthis' warning to carriers mark a widening of a conflict that has already disrupted global energy shipments. Multiple airlines have suspended flights to the Saudi capital, and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency advised carriers on Friday against operating in parts of Saudi airspace, saying recent attacks had shown the Houthis can and intend to strike deeper inside Saudi territory.
Lufthansa, Air India, Pakistan International Airlines, FlyDubai, Etihad Airways, Emirates and Air Arabia are among the carriers that have halted service to Riyadh, according to CBS News.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the attack, writing on X that the Houthis had once again struck Riyadh's airport and taken three innocent lives. She said the EU stood in full solidarity with the people of Saudi Arabia and Gulf partners, and that attacks on civilian infrastructure are unacceptable. Iran's proxies, she said, must stop their reckless and violent acts.
A taunt over Riyadh's airspace
Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said Friday that humanitarian flights to and from Riyadh's airport would be permitted only with authorization from the group. In a post on X, Saree said such flights would be allowed if they obtained a permit from the Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center in Sanaa.
The statement amounted to a direct challenge to Saudi Arabia's authority over its own airspace, and it followed the deadly airport attack by a day.
Yemeni forces retake the Bab el-Mandeb
On the ground in Yemen, government forces backed by Saudi-led coalition air support took control of the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Mayyun Island from the Houthis, according to a Saudi diplomat. Ambassador to Yemen Mohammed Al Jaber said in a post on X that the strait had been cleansed of remaining Houthi forces.
The fighting intensified this week after the Saudi-backed Yemeni government launched an offensive to retake territory the rebels had seized, including coastline around Bab el-Mandeb that the Houthis captured only weeks earlier. The Houthis have controlled a large part of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, for more than ten years.
Yemeni forces said earlier in the week that they had retaken other key territory along the Red Sea coast north of the strait. On Tuesday, the Houthis maintained that their fighters still held full control over all their gains on the ground.
Iran strikes a tanker near Hormuz
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Friday that its navy struck a liquefied petroleum gas tanker that it says tried to cross the Strait of Hormuz through what it considers an illegal route. The IRGC Navy identified the vessel as NV Sunshine and said it was hit a few hours earlier as it intended to cross via the illegal route, a reference to a U.S.-backed lane that runs close to the Omani coast.
On Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior adviser to the IRGC commander-in-chief, said Iran would soon block what it regards as illegal routes through the strait. He repeated Iran's position that the waterway is closed and that Iranian armed forces have full control over it, adding that the situation would last until Iran's legitimate demands are met.
The Trump administration says the strait is open and that the southern route is safe for commercial vessels. The U.S. military has escorted some ships through that route for weeks, helping energy shipments from the Persian Gulf recover after being severely impeded by the war with Iran.
Germany to tap emergency reserves
Germany will release up to 15 million barrels of diesel, crude and heating oil, its economy minister said Friday. Katherina Reiche told Reuters that diesel and heating oil would come first, with crude oil to follow, and that Germany would carry out an agreement reached by the G7 last week to release 100 million barrels of diesel oil. She said the entire supply chain had to be kept in mind, because available crude alone is not enough.
The Trump administration has pressed Europe to draw on its emergency reserves. President Trump had threatened to ban U.S. diesel exports, a step that would push global diesel prices higher, saying in late September that he had called for such a ban. After the G7 announcement last week, he said the U.S. was never going to do it.
Iran's appeal to the Vatican
Tehran's ambassador to the Vatican, Mohammad Hossein Mokhtari, asked Pope Leo XIV to use his moral and diplomatic influence against U.S. sanctions and air restrictions on Iran that the ambassador says threaten ordinary people's access to medical treatment, education, family and religious pilgrimage. In a letter to the head of the Catholic Church on Thursday, Mokhtari called for a public response.
What to watch next is whether the airlines that suspended Riyadh service extend those suspensions, and whether the Houthis follow through on their threat to treat Saudi airspace as an operating zone.
