Attack on Dammam airport kills two as Houthis claim strikes on Saudi Arabia; two more killed at Shaybah oil field

Two people were killed and eight injured in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, on Wednesday evening, 21 October, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said. Yemen’s Houthi movement said on Thursday that the airport was one of the sites it had targeted with drones and missiles over the previous 48 hours, the BBC reported.

Claims made by the Houthis and by the Saudi-led coalition about targets and interceptions could not be independently confirmed.

The aviation authority identified the dead as a Saudi citizen and an Indian resident, and said the injured, including Saudi, Indian, Yemeni, Bangladeshi and Nepali nationals, had injuries “from minor to severe”. It did not say what type of attack took place. On Thursday it said operations at the airport had resumed and air traffic had returned to normal, Arab News reported.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Saudi energy ministry said air defences intercepted a drone trying to target an Aramco processing facility at the Shaybah oil field, and that falling debris killed two residents from the Philippines and Nepal and injured two others. It said a contractor’s vehicle caught fire outside the facility’s perimeter and that operations were unaffected. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea did not claim the Shaybah attack, the BBC said.

Sarea said the group had also targeted the Saudi defence ministry headquarters in Riyadh, an Aramco facility in Yanbu and Abha International Airport. The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted four drones over Eastern Province on Wednesday night and more over the Riyadh and Medina regions on Thursday.

According to Saudi authorities cited by the BBC, at least 21 people have been killed in Houthi attacks on Saudi airports since the start of October. The Houthis said they were retaliating for Saudi air strikes on territory they control in western Yemen.