The explosions shook Riyadh just before midnight on Tuesday. Saudi air defenses intercepted two Houthi cruise missiles over the capital — and the falling wreckage came down in residential neighborhoods. Four people, including a child, were injured, and 15 homes were damaged, the Saudi Civil Defence announced on Wednesday.
According to the Civil Defence, the injured were two
The night’s attacks went far beyond the capital. The Saudi-led coalition said its forces destroyed a cruise missile over Al-Kharj governorate south of Riyadh, stopped ballistic missiles launched toward Dhahran and Haradh, and shot down three drones north of the capital. Early on Wednesday, a ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh itself was intercepted and destroyed, the coalition spokesman, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, said.
The kingdom’s Energy Ministry confirmed a ballistic
In Washington, President Donald Trump weighed in before flying to a campaign rally in Alaska. Calling the Houthis’ actions “very bad,” he said: “They’re behaving very badly.” He declined to say whether the United States had decided on military action, but floated asking Turkey’s president to step in: “President Erdogan, I think, would do as I ask.” On his Truth Social platform, he accused the Houthis of attacking Saudi Arabia at Iran’s direction to drive up oil prices ahead of the November 3 US midterm elections — and warned the rebels retaliation would come after the vote: “I will never forget.”
Then came the line aimed at Tehran. Trump called Iran “a failed country,” claimed it has 300 percent inflation and cannot pay its troops, and said: “We’ll make a decision on Iran very soon.” Hours later, at the Alaska rally, he went further: “Wait till you see what we do to Iran. We’re going to do a number. We’ve sort of had it.” Reports by Axios and Israel’s N12 said Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed possible renewed joint strikes on Iran last week; a White House official denied the two had discussed resuming the war.
For readers far from the Gulf, this is no longer a distant border war. The Houthis — the Iran-aligned rebel movement that has controlled northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since 2014 — are now reaching the Saudi capital almost nightly. When interceptions rain debris onto homes, the war has arrived in the living rooms of a city of nearly 8 million people. The Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — the chokepoint through which a huge share of Europe-bound energy now flows since Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz — sit in the crossfire. And with Trump openly tying the Houthi campaign to oil prices three weeks before Americans vote, every new missile over Riyadh now echoes in Washington.
The exchange followed Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Tuesday against fuel facilities in Houthi-held Yemen, including the Yemen Petroleum Company station of Al-Sabaha west of Sanaa, after evacuation warnings to civilians. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree promised a “harsh and painful” retaliation and named the Aramco headquarters, an oil refinery in Riyadh, and King Khalid International Airport as potential targets — telling oil workers to stay away from the sites.
Riyadh is answering with fury. In a cabinet session chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the kingdom’s de facto ruler — the Saudi government said the Houthis “will face consequences” for the repeated attacks, and backed an expanded coalition operation to neutralize threats to Yemen, international peace, and the Red Sea shipping lanes the rebels have threatened. The vow comes as Saudi Arabia is already running short of air-defense interceptors and asking allies for help.
missile struck an administrative building at the Aramco complex in Dhahran late Tuesday, sparking a “limited fire.” No one was hurt. A company source told Reuters the missile damaged the top three floors of an office tower inside the headquarters complex — the operations nerve center of the world’s biggest oil company. The strike on the Aramco headquarters was the first of its kind in this war, as Informopedia reported on Tuesday evening.
women, a man, and a child. Residents described hearing powerful explosions over the city, and phones buzzed with an official alert warning that Riyadh was facing “a hostile aerial threat.” A witness walking a major avenue in the city told the AFP news agency he saw a projectile cut across the sky above a shopping mall, leaving “a yellowish trail of light followed by a trail of smoke.”
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