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Trump evaluates US joining Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed Yemeni rebels
“We may. We’re going to look at it,” Trump said, adding: “We just found out about the recent attack. So we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.” This is as the US Secretary of Sstate, Marco Rubio, called the attacks “reprehensible”, saying, “they must stop now”.
A Saudi government statement said the dead included four Saudi citizens, as well as two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a US citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese.
One witness at the Riyadh airport reported hearing an explosion while waiting to board a flight, and another said they saw a strike that left people wounded. “I was on gate 403,” at the domestic terminal, the witness told the Agence France-Presse news agency. “I saw [gate] 401 hit, I saw injured [people] in front of my eyes. Everyone was running.”
The relative of one injured person said they had been wounded in the shoulders and arms by shattered glass and taken to hospital. A missile struck an airport complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights, a regional official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to speak to the media.
A projectile also fell near the King Fahd international airport in Dammam, according to the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis. The Dammam airport has become an important alternative to Riyadh amid the recent spate of attacks.
Saturday’s incident comes amid an escalation of missile strikes by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on the kingdom. The airport has already been attacked twice this week, leaving four people dead and others wounded, and badly damaging an aircraft.
The Houthis have repeatedly attacked Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers after a truce in their long-running war with Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government unravelled in July.
The attack came as forces allied to the UN-recognised government in Yemen claim to have mounted a successful offensive to retake the Bab al-Mandab strait from Houthi rebels, but accounts vary as to whether the push has been repelled.
A Houthi spokesperson said forces from the Saudi-backed government based in Aden “were targeted with a large number of ballistic missiles, artillery support and heavy weapons, resulting in the destruction of more than 22 armoured vehicles and the killing and wounding of dozens, including a number of commanders.
Reports said, “More than 30 ambulances arrived in Aden to transport the dead and wounded from the Saudi enemy’s mobilisations.” By contrast, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed al-Jaber, said: “Blessed Friday and victory for every Yemeni and Arab. Bab al-Mandab has been cleared of the remnants of the Houthi terrorist militia.”
