Riyadh issued its first air raid alert since fighting in Yemen resumed, warning residents before 3am that the area is under a hostile aerial threat. Saudi Arabia's civil defense agency lifted the alert about 30 minutes later, but residents reported hearing two explosions even after the all clear, and a large plume of black smoke rose near King Khalid International Airport.
FlightRadar24 recorded major disruption at the airport, rating it 5.0, the maximum on its index, with cancellations and delays across the schedule. Saudi Arabia has not officially named the source of the threat, and the Iran backed Houthis, accused of launching the attack, denied a separate claim from Riyadh the day before that they had targeted Mecca.
The Houthis say they have carried out 26 strikes on Saudi targets in the past 24 hours and roughly 300 over the past week, part of a war that reignited in July and now includes a Houthi declared maritime blockade on Riyadh, backed by their control of the Red Sea coast including the Bab al Mandeb Strait. The UN has recorded more than 112,000 people displaced by the renewed fighting, with close to 3,000 fleeing across the water to Djibouti.
The alert reached Saudi Arabia's own capital and its busiest airport two days after Washington approved a 24.3 billion dollar sale of F35 fighter jets to the kingdom, a deal built for exactly the kind of aerial threat Riyadh residents were just told to take cover from. The jets are not delivered yet. The threat already is.