The third attack this week on Riyadh’s international airport on Saturday left at least 12 people dead and ​more than 300 wounded, Saudi authorities said, as Iran-backed Houthis escalated the campaign they launched this summer against the kingdom, Reuters reported.

The dead included four Saudis, two ‌people from Bangladesh and one person each from the US, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt, the Saudi civil aviation authority said. At the latest count, officials said, 309 were wounded.

Hospitals were flooded with wounded brought by ambulance and helicopter, people briefed on the matter said. Some were in critical condition.

Saturday’s attack, the deadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade, occurred without warning, with no alert issued by Saudi ​Arabia’s threat warning system. This week’s two previous attacks on King Khalid International Airport left four people dead and caused heavy damage to a Saudi commercial plane ​parked on the tarmac.

The deadly strikes exposed vulnerabilities in the kingdom’s defence capabilities as it wages an air campaign against the Houthis to ⁠support a ground war by the Yemeni government against the Iran-backed group.

Hospitals were flooded with wounded brought by ambulance and helicopter, people briefed on the matter said. Some were in critical condition.

Saturday’s attack, the deadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade, occurred without warning, with no alert issued by Saudi ​Arabia’s threat warning system. This week’s two previous attacks on King Khalid International Airport left four people dead and caused heavy damage to a Saudi commercial plane ​parked on the tarmac.

The deadly strikes exposed vulnerabilities in the kingdom’s defence capabilities as it wages an air campaign against the Houthis to ⁠support a ground war by the Yemeni government against the Iran-backed group.

US President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters outside the White House, was asked whether Washington planned to join Saudi strikes on the Houthis, read the report.

“We may. ​We’re going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly,” he said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attacks, saying ‌they “demonstrate a ⁠blatant disregard for innocent civilian life.”

One eyewitness at the airport on Saturday reported seeing an explosion and then multiple people lying injured on the ground inside. More than a dozen ambulances were seen rushing towards the facility. A video verified by Reuters showed ambulances at the airport.

An injured traveller told Reuters they saw something fly across the sky outside the airport before part of the ceiling near a departure gate collapsed.

The US embassy in Riyadh said it was “aware of attacks” and “strongly recommends all US citizens avoid this ​airport and surrounding areas.”

Saudi Arabia entered the Yemen ​war in 2015 at the head ⁠of an Arab coalition to try to force the Houthis out of the Yemeni capital Sanaa. The Houthis had stormed Sanaa the previous year, pushing out government forces, Reuters reported.

The war was fought to a bloody stalemate, with hundreds of thousands of Yemenis killed by fighting and famine. ​Saudi Arabia struck a 2022 deal with the Houthis, freezing the conflict.

That ceasefire unravelled over the summer, culminating in a lightning Houthi ​advance that took the ⁠Red Sea chokepoint of Bab el-Mandeb from Saudi-backed government forces.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government began an offensive this week to try to retake that territory, which has so far made slow gains, even as the Houthis put the country’s third-largest city, Taiz, under siege.

Flight-tracking site flightradar24 showed all flights to Riyadh had either been diverted or cancelled, with only a ⁠helicopter hovering over ​the airport at one point.

Houthi attacks on Thursday and earlier in the week had already prompted a number ​of carriers to suspend or cancel services to the Saudi capital, shortly before Riyadh is due to host major energy and investment conferences.

Organizers of those conferences said ahead of the strikes on Saturday they would go ahead as ​planned.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the US will not launch an attack on Iran before November’s US midterm congressional elections, asserting that the two countries are ‌having “productive” talks about ending the six-month-old war, Reuters reported.

“We are having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd.”

The war, which began in ⁠February when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, has helped drive Trump’s domestic approval ratings downward and is weighing heavily on his fellow Republicans as they seek to preserve their narrow legislative majorities in November’s election.

Some 60% of Americans — including one in four Republicans — disapprove of how Trump is handling the situation in Iran, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. The conflict has pushed gasoline prices sharply higher at a time when voters say their top concern is the cost ‌of ⁠living.

Trump has repeatedly said he expects oil prices to drop after the elections, but he has not offered a detailed plan for exiting the war, read the report.

Iran and the US have exchanged proposals in recent weeks aimed at ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a ⁠vital global energy shipping route. Trump rejected Tehran’s latest offer.

Iran’s state media reported on Thursday that Tehran would not abandon uranium enrichment or hand over its uranium stockpile, citing the head ⁠of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization, days after US Vice President JD Vance told Reuters that Iran must make “meaningful” reductions in its enrichment capacity.

The US, Israel ⁠and Western allies have long accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, an accusation Iran has denied.

Syria is carefully considering providing military assistance to key ally Saudi Arabia amid an escalating war against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, Reuters reported citing a US official and a Syrian ​military official.

Options being considered include defensive aid to protect the kingdom from attacks, or deployment of forces in an offensive ‌capacity to help Saudi-backed Yemeni troops fight the Houthis, the sources said.

The US official said Saudi Arabia had requested that Syria deploy forces to fight the Houthis – an assertion denied by the Syrian president’s media adviser, Ahmad Zaidan, in a post on X following the publication of this story.

In response to a request for comment to the Syrian foreign ministry, a Syrian diplomat said Syria stood firmly with Saudi Arabia in the ​face of Houthi attacks but that the government’s primary focus was on domestic priorities such as recovery from the country’s civil war.

“Should Saudi Arabia request any military cooperation ​or exchange of expertise, this would take place exclusively through official channels and within the framework of the bilateral agreements governing relations between ⁠our two brotherly countries,” the diplomat said in a statement.

The Saudi government media office and Yemen’s information minister did not respond to requests for comment.

Saudi Arabia has been requesting assistance ​far and wide, from the US to Europe and the Middle East, for both defensive and offensive support in a renewed war against the group that follows weeks of Houthi missile and drone attacks ​on the kingdom.

The war is being led on the ground by a patchwork of Yemeni government forces with Saudi air support. They have made limited advances since the campaign was launched on Monday.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa made a public visit to Riyadh on Tuesday and met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MbS. He discussed potential Syrian military assistance for the kingdom, among other matters, the US official said.

Footage ​broadcast by Syrian state media showed that he was escorted back to his plane by Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, a brother of the crown prince who has overseen the ​Yemen file.

DEPLOYMENT COULD DEEPEN TENSIONS WITH NEIGHBOURS

Syrian fighters from opposition groups that battled former leader Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war have in past years been recruited as mercenaries for other conflicts, notably ‌Libya’s internal ⁠conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war.

But for Damascus, any potential deployment carries risks.

The militias that made up the armed opposition are now under the nascent Syrian state, which has adopted a policy of avoiding engagement in conflict, including the Iran war, to focus on recovery from the 14-year Syrian civil war.

The state is still piecing together its army from the various militia groups from the former rebel coalition that toppled Assad, which included many hardline Sunni Islamist and foreign fighters, and trying to contain tensions with minorities including the Alawites, a Shi’ite offshoot to which Assad belonged.

A ​conflict between that army and the Houthis, who ​are also adherents of an offshoot of ⁠Shi’ite Islam, could have divisive religious undertones that the Syrian leadership and its Western partners want to avoid, the US official said.

It is for this reason that it previously rejected a US request to help fight Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Involvement in a battle against the Iran-backed Houthis could ​also be viewed as a hostile act by Iran and its allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and militias in Iraq, with which the ​Syrian rebels-turned-rulers have a history ⁠of conflict.

KEEN TO SHOW SUPPORT

At the same time, Sharaa is keen to show the country’s support for Saudi Arabia and MbS, who played a decisive role helping the former jihadist gain international legitimacy, including by brokering a May 2025 meeting between Sharaa and US President Donald Trump.

Saudi Arabia has also provided financial assistance to Syria and a Syrian show of support could result in that increasing, ⁠the US official ​said.

“A new Syria sending defensive personnel of a very small number to the most holy places in the ​Islamic world, alongside technical support to neutralise incoming drones, would be tremendously and positively symbolic,” said H.A. Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

“But anything beyond, particularly in terms of Syrian boots on ​the ground, I think would be a wholly different proposition, and one I think Damascus would avoid, given the priorities they need to focus on in Syria,” he said.