Saudi-led coalition intercepts Houthi missile aimed at Riyadh

The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted and destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile targeting the Saudi capital Riyadh, while the Yemeni armed group claimed it carried out further attacks on the kingdom.

Coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki announced the interception on X on Wednesday, days after two separate air raids on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport killed 14 people and wounded hundreds.

Saudi Arabia's General Directorate of Civil Defense also issued two warnings through the national early warning platform, later saying the danger had passed. One warning applied to Al-Kharj province in Riyadh province, and the other to the capital.

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah (Arabic for "supporters of God"), said in a statement that they targeted facilities of Saudi national oil company Aramco in Dhahran, an Aramco refinery in Riyadh, and the capital's King Khalid International Airport.

Overnight, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Energy confirmed that an Aramco administrative building in Dhahran was hit.

Al Jazeera correspondent Zein Basravi, reporting from Qatar's capital Doha, said the view that the Saudi-led coalition could confine the conflict to Yemeni territory has been shattered over the past 10 days as multiple sites inside Saudi Arabia were targeted.

The Houthi attacks on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport over the weekend killed 14 people and wounded more than 300. The Houthis are also reported to have struck other airports, including Abha International Airport, killing two people, as well as Aramco facilities.

Meanwhile, Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have launched a counteroffensive in Yemen to retake coastal territory from the Houthis near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait at the gateway to the Red Sea, a key chokepoint for maritime trade.

Fighting in Yemen between the Iran-backed Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces has escalated sharply over the past month, breaking a United Nations-mediated ceasefire that had largely held since 2022.

The Houthis have controlled Yemen's most populous areas, including the capital Sanaa, since seizing the city in 2014, forcing the internationally recognized government to relocate to southern Yemen.

The Muslim World League on Wednesday condemned the Houthis' continued attacks on Saudi Arabia, saying they deliberately target civilians and civilian sites. League Secretary-General Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa said the nature of the attacks confirmed "the criminal approach of this terrorist militia in deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure".

Meanwhile, the Houthis' Yemen-based Al-Masirah television channel reported that four air strikes hit Harib district in the country's Marib province. The outcome of the attacks was not immediately clear.

Nawaf Obaid, a security and intelligence analyst and senior fellow at King's College London, told Al Jazeera that although air strikes are increasing, "the real ground war has not yet begun" for the Saudi-led coalition.

Obaid outlined the phases such a campaign could unfold in, saying the first would be "striking the energy and resource sources that allow the Houthis to operate... tanks, armored vehicles, trucks".

The second phase would look at "the systematic expansion of Houthi control in the region, which is pivotal", he said.

The third phase would involve discussing how to "begin retaking the territories the Houthis have seized since the start of the war".

Obaid said these "multi-directional phases" would include specialized forces, particularly in mountain warfare, as the Houthis push the battlefield into rugged terrain.