The Iran War Opens a Second Gulf Front: Houthi Missiles on Riyadh Kill 13, and Trump Hints "We May" Join
The Iran war's proxy front has become a war of the capital cities. On Saturday (Oct 10) a Houthi missile hit the passenger terminal of Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, killing at least 12 people and wounding some 300 — per AP, "the deadliest in a Gulf Arab nation since the Iran war began," and per CNN the deadliest attack on Saudi soil in more than a decade. The dead included four Saudis, two Bangladeshis, a Palestinian, a US citizen, an Egyptian Flynas flight attendant, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese; an Indian citizen died of wounds Sunday, bringing the toll to 13. On Sunday a projectile struck the same terminal again, Dammam's King Fahd airport and eastern oil/gas facilities were attacked, and the airport remained closed. The Houthis, who have hit the airport every day since Wednesday, warned "all airlines, experts, employees, workers and travelers against using Saudi airports and airspace, as they are vulnerable to attack and have become a theater of operations for our forces."
The escalation is the counterstroke to a Saudi-led offensive: the Houthis seized key areas along the Bab el-Mandeb strait last month — the crucial alternative waterway to the Iran-threatened Strait of Hormuz (see Ships Now Sinking in Hormuz: Two Cargo Vessels Lost, 21 Hits This Month, Flows Below a Quarter of Pre-War) — and Riyadh has been flying air support for Yemeni government forces trying to retake them, "stopping short of any major deployment of its own troops on the ground" (CNN). The Houthis are holding ground and vowing more, "drawing from Iran's playbook in its conflict with the United States." Their arsenal is improving: Yemeni military spokesperson Majed al-Nazili says Iranian-linked modifications produced missiles that "fly faster and use a thermal-tracking system to home in on any heat source," and Anthropic reported in September that a group based in northern Yemen used its Claude AI tools to help develop missile guidance software.
Riyadh's constraints are stark. It is running low on missile interceptors and has asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt for air-defense support; the US has sent 100+ military advisers under a newly formed joint command but has refused to strike the Houthis — MBS asked Trump twice last month and was declined. After the airport attack, Trump said: "The Saudis are good fighters... But I think the attack was a terrible thing," and — asked whether the US will join strikes on the Houthis — "We may." A US intervention, AP notes, could trigger Houthi closure of Bab el-Mandeb and further restrict Gulf oil flows — the war's economic gravity spreading to a second chokepoint while the energy minister, at an international energy conference in Riyadh, insisted "There is no way that somebody will break our back. We are like a phoenix, we come out of the ashes all the time."
The human ledger on the other side: the Houthi-run health ministry says 91 Yemenis have been killed by the Saudi-led coalition in five weeks, 60% of them women and children. ICG's Ahmed Nagi captures the trap both ways: "Rather than pushing Riyadh to step back, attacks on critical Saudi infrastructure could make the Saudis more determined to continue the campaign."
Signal: the war is no longer a US-Iran naval confrontation managed inside the Gulf — Iran's allies are striking a US ally's civilian infrastructure, an American citizen is among the dead, and the US president is publicly weighing entry into a third theater (Yemen) while the home front reels (see The Iran War's Home Front: Pentagon Quietly Raises the Toll to 21 Dead, 865 Wounded — and 74 Democrats Demand Answers on a Wedding Strike).