SANAA/RIYADH, Oct. 10 — More deaths and casualties were reported in Yemen and Saudi Arabia on Friday as the UN envoy for Yemen warned that the country had returned to “full-scale war,” with hostilities spreading across multiple front lines.
THREE KILLED IN RIYADH AIRPORT
Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said on Friday that three Saudi citizens, including an airline pilot, were killed and a number of others of various nationalities were injured in two attacks targeting Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on Thursday.
The first attack targeted facilities at the airport, while the second hit an aircraft belonging to the country’s national carrier, Saudia, GACA said in a statement.
GACA said airport operations and air traffic have resumed. Airlines, including Qatar Airways, flydubai and Etihad Airways, announced the cancellation of several flights to and from Riyadh over the next few days.
On its guidance on Saudi airspace, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency added “an increased risk of misidentification of civil aircraft, as well as risks associated with missile and drone overflights, interception activity and falling debris.”
OVERNIGHT AIRSTRIKES ACROSS SANAA
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen announced Friday night that it had destroyed 136 military targets in areas controlled by the Houthis group, working to dismantle and destroy the Houthis’ ballistic missile network.
Coalition spokesperson Turki Al-Malki posted a video showing the destruction of ballistic missile storage facilities inside mountain tunnels in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.
Meanwhile, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported that two airport employees were killed and two others wounded in an airstrike on Sanaa International Airport on Friday afternoon.
The Houthi-controlled civil defense authority said in a statement carried by al-Masirah that a series of Saudi airstrikes across Sanaa overnight from Thursday to Friday sparked fires at four civilian facilities.
The authority said one factory was completely destroyed, while other facilities suffered extensive damage to buildings, equipment and stored materials. No casualties were immediately reported from the overnight strikes.
FIGHTINGS BETWEEN HOUTHIS, GOVERNMENT FORCES
Also on Friday, fighting also intensified between the Houthis and government forces, backed by the Saudi-led Arab coalition, in southwestern Yemen, particularly around the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Earlier on Friday, Yemeni government forces renewed an offensive against Houthi positions near Bab al-Mandab, seeking to expand recent gains and push deeper into Houthi-held areas overlooking the vital international shipping route, a government military official told Xinhua.
The official claimed that dozens of Houthi fighters had been killed in Friday’s clashes, adding that government forces had called on Houthi fighters remaining in the area to surrender.
Al-Masirah TV, however, gave a conflicting account, saying Houthi forces had repelled government troops advancing from the neighboring province of Lahj toward the southern approaches to Bab al-Mandab, claiming dozens of casualties among the advancing forces.
In Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on Friday, a loud explosion was heard near the international airport. A local security official told Xinhua that preliminary information indicated that “the explosion was caused by a suspected Houthi attack targeting a military base close to Aden International Airport.”
INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION
In a Friday briefing to the UN Security Council on Yemen, Hans Grundberg, UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, said hostilities have intensified in recent weeks in Yemen, and he condemned Houthi attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.
Ongoing instability in the Middle East continues to affect dynamics in Yemen, while developments there in turn reverberate across the region, noted the UN envoy, who urged a political settlement.
“Unless war is to become Yemen’s permanent reality, the time to consider political strategies is now,” said Grundberg.
Also on Friday, Türkiye strongly condemned the Houthis’ attacks on Saudi airports, calling for an immediate halt to attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the attacks,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement, reaffirming Türkiye’s full solidarity with Saudi Arabia and reiterated its call for resolving ongoing conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy.
Yemen has been embroiled in conflict since late 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of the north. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, now based in the southern port city of Aden.
The renewed fighting marked a major escalation after a UN-brokered truce in 2022 largely halted major hostilities.(Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
