Riyadh wakes to blasts as Houthis keep up missile strikes on Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Oct 24 — The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis said on Saturday it had intercepted a ballistic missile launched towards Riyadh by the Iran-backed group.

Two explosions rang out in Riyadh early Saturday, an AFP journalist in the Saudi capital said, as the Houthis keep up strikes on the kingdom.

An early warning system was activated to alert residents to a potential threat, the Saudi civil defence said.

“Air defences intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi terrorist militia toward Riyadh,” coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki posted on X.

A drone was also intercepted in the country’s Eastern Province, al-Malki said in an earlier post on Saturday.

Saudi Arabia has come under sustained attack from the Iran-backed group this month, including a strike on Riyadh’s international airport that was the country’s deadliest in years.

Tehran has denied having anything to do with attacks by the Houthis after Saudi Arabia accused Iran of having encouraged the group’s escalation against the kingdom.

Following an uneasy four-year truce, fighting reignited in Yemen in July, months into the US-Iran conflict that has plunged the wider region into crisis.

The Yemen conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people in one of the world’s poorest countries, which was already suffering a vast humanitarian crisis. — AFP