Houthis Claim Missile and Drone Strikes on Riyadh as Smoke Rises Near Airport

Yemen's Houthi movement said on Saturday that it had launched missiles and drones at "sensitive" sites in Riyadh, hours after flames and a thick column of black smoke were seen close to the Saudi capital's main airport.

Video and photographs showed the smoke rising in the area, with the airport highway, the main terminal building and other facilities visible in the foreground. At one stage, flames could be seen climbing from behind what appeared to be fuel tanks.

Saudi civil defence had sent telephone alerts overnight warning of possible aerial attacks in Riyadh and in Al-Kharj, a city east of the capital, before issuing an all-clear on Saturday morning. A journalist in Riyadh's Olaya district reported hearing booms before the all-clear was issued. The alerts were the first in the capital since an escalation with the Houthis began in July, though similar warnings had been sent earlier this year after the outbreak of the US-Iran war.

The Houthis did not identify specific targets in Riyadh, but said they had also struck an Aramco facility in Yanbu, a key Saudi oil export hub on the Red Sea. The group described the operation as a response to an attack in Sanaa, Yemen's capital.

There was no immediate comment from the Saudi government's media office on the smoke or the overnight alerts, and no immediate Saudi confirmation of the Houthi claims.

The Houthis, who control Yemen's most populous regions and much of the north, have been attacking Saudi Arabia since declaring a naval blockade on Riyadh in July, with strikes aimed at Saudi vessels in the Red Sea. Their campaign has hit Saudi cities, energy infrastructure and shipping, threatening global oil supplies and imperilling the main alternative Red Sea route for Gulf exports while traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains blockaded.

On Friday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had foiled unspecified "criminal attempts" in Sanaa, blamed Saudi Arabia and promised a response. The Iran-aligned group, which seized Yemen's entire Red Sea coast this month, says the Saudi Air Force has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against it in recent days.

The fighting has opened a new front in the wider war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Al Jazeera in an interview aired on Saturday that Tehran wanted the war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis to end, and that he believed the Yemenis also sought a settlement with Riyadh. Rezaei said Iran had conveyed its conditions to mediators for resuming stalled negotiations with the United States, including "ending the war on all fronts", and that consultations were continuing with Qatari and Pakistani mediators while Tehran awaited a response from US President Donald Trump.

The UN Security Council said in a statement on Friday that it "condemned in the strongest terms continued Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including attacks impacting civilian and energy infrastructure, which have resulted in the injury of civilians, including women and children." The council also condemned "Houthi military escalation in Yemen".