Fire erupts near Riyadh airport as Houthis claim strikes

Black smoke and flames rose near Riyadh's international airport on Saturday, as Yemen's Houthis announced they had carried out strikes on targets in the Saudi capital and coastal oil facilities.

Firefighters extinguished a blaze on a fuel tank with the logo of the Saudi oil giant Aramco at a fuel depot near the airport, an AFP journalist saw. Footage shared online and verified by AFP showed a column of black smoke above airport buildings.

In recent weeks, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement has staged a lightning offensive, seizing swathes of territory in one of the world's poorest countries, leaving the internationally-recognised government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, scrambling to respond.

Saudi Arabia has responded with scores of airstrikes on Houthi-held areas but failed to stop the advance.

"In response to the Saudi enemy's criminal attempts to target the capital Sanaa... the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out two successful military operations using a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones," Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said, in a statement on Telegram.

"The first targeted sensitive sites in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the second targeted Aramco facilities in Yanbu."

There was no immediate response from Saudi authorities, which had earlier issued an overnight air raid alert.

Hours after the early morning alert, residents told AFP on condition of anonymity that they heard what sounded like a round of explosions echoing through parts of the Saudi capital.

Tracking website FlightRadar24 reported "major problems" at Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, listing it for a while under its maximum disruption index, before normal traffic began to resume.

- Lightning offensive -

This is the first time since Yemen's civil war resumed that strikes have threatened the Saudi capital, piling further pressure on a global economy already rocked by seven months of war between the US and Iran.

"The area is under a hostile aerial threat," according to a message received just before 3:00 am by Riyadh residents, urging them to stay indoors.

AFP journalists then heard two explosions, before the Saudi civil defence agency lifted the alert half an hour later.

"I heard the alarm, then my windows shook," a Riyadh resident, 27, living in the city's north, told AFP. "It was definitely scary. I was not expecting this."

- 'Terrifying' -

Another resident described the attack as "terrifying".

The incident comes days after Riyadh accused the Houthis of targeting Mecca on Wednesday, denouncing it as a "cowardly terrorist attack" on Islam's holy city, which welcomes millions of pilgrims each year. The Houthis strongly denied the accusation, calling it a "worn-out lie".

The group has reported scores of retaliatory strikes carried out daily by Riyadh since their offensive this month to take over the country's entire Red Sea coast, giving them control over the vital Bab al-Mandab strait.

Riyadh was targeted with waves of attacks during an earlier period of the war, including a drone strike on the US embassy in the capital's diplomatic quarter in March.

The United States, according to US news platform Axios, last week refused a Saudi request to strike the Houthis.

On Thursday, Washington approved a $24.3 billion sale of 48 F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom to help Riyadh "deter current and future threats", the US State Department said.

- 'Escalation trap' -

"My read is that Saudi Arabia is entering into a phase of escalation with the Houthis and will respond, but they know the only way this ends is through negotiations," Anna Jacobs of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington told AFP.

"But both sides have a say in when that can happen and both sides seem locked in the escalation trap at this stage."

The United Nations said the renewed fighting had displaced more than 112,000 people while nearly 3,000 others had fled across the sea to Djibouti.

War in Yemen broke out in 2014 when the Houthis seized control of the capital Sanaa and other regions, triggering a military intervention led by Saudi Arabia in March 2015.

The fragile truce reached in 2022 between the warring parties collapsed in July, when the Houthis defied Riyadh's control of Yemeni airspace by allowing an Iranian aircraft to land in Yemen.

Their recent takeover of the coastline has sparked global concern, with international maritime trade already impacted by Iran's imposition of a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.

The Houthis insist there is no threat to shipping in the sea lane -- except for ships from Saudi Arabia, the world's leading crude exporter.

The apparent attack came as the Houthis improve their defences in newly conquered territory along Yemen's Red Sea coastline, with members of the group telling AFP they have been installing radar and digging tunnels.

Two Houthi sources told AFP that personnel from Iran's Revolutionary Guards had visited the area in recent days.

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Saudi Aramco