A Missile Hits Riyadh's Airport, and Trump Says He'll Decide Fast

A missile slammed into King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday afternoon, killing 12 people and wounding 309 others, according to Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation. The dead came from eight countries. One of them was an American.

The Saudi-led coalition blamed the Houthis, the Iran-backed militia the coalition also holds responsible for a string of attacks on Saudi civil aviation this week. Breitbart News reported that the group claimed the attack, citing Reuters, though none of the available accounts offer independent confirmation. The airport shut down Saturday and stayed shut.

President Trump, speaking to reporters outside the White House, said Washington is weighing whether to join Saudi strikes on the group. "We may. We're going to look at it," he said. "We just found out about the recent attack, so we'll make a decision. We move very quickly."

What the Saudi Aviation Authority Actually Said

The follow-up statement from GACA, carried by the Saudi Press Agency at 1:11 a.m. Riyadh time Sunday, put the toll at 12 dead and 309 injured, some of them critically. The breakdown of the dead: four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshis, and one each from the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Sudan and the Palestinian territories. The wounded were spread across several hospitals, and the authority said the extent of property damage was still being assessed.

The missile struck a complex housing Terminals 3 and 4. The Wall Street Journal reported direct hits on both terminals, according to Breitbart.

A witness described the moment to AFP. "I was on gate 403. I saw [gate] 401 hit, I saw injured [people] in front of my eyes," the man said. "Everyone was running."

Weapon type, trajectory and a final damage assessment remain unresolved. Saudi authorities have not released the identities of the victims, including the American. Reuters, citing people briefed on the matter including Western officials, reported that the kingdom's threat-warning system issued no public alert beforehand, a detail that has not appeared elsewhere.

The Third Strike on the Same Airport in One Week

This was not a bolt from the blue. Earlier in the week, missile attacks on the Riyadh and Abha airports killed three civilians and wounded dozens. On Thursday, a strike on King Khalid killed three Saudis, among them an airline pilot, and damaged a commercial aircraft. Saturday made three hits on the same airport in a matter of days.

The Associated Press, in copy carried by Newsmax, described Saturday's attack as the deadliest in any Gulf Arab country since the start of the war with Iran. The Journal called it Saudi Arabia's deadliest in more than a decade.

The shooting war that produced it escalated quickly. The Yemeni government announced an operation it called Yemen Dawn on Oct. 4, and the Saudi-led coalition launched its own operation around Hodeidah the following day, with fighting reported near the Bab el-Mandeb strait and Perim Island. The United States has been supplying intelligence, targeting and planning support, according to Breitbart, along with Israeli intelligence routed through CENTCOM. What Trump is now considering is something different: American strikes.

Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, the coalition spokesman, called the airport attack a war crime and promised a decisive response. English renderings of his phrasing differ slightly between outlets.

Washington's Response So Far

Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attack in a written statement Saturday and confirmed an American was among the dead. "These reprehensible attacks demonstrate a blatant disregard for innocent civilian life," he said. "They must stop now." The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh issued an advisory urging Americans to stay away from the airport area.

The Houthi-run Health Ministry said Sunday that coalition operations have killed 91 Yemenis and injured 168 over five weeks, and claimed 60 percent of the dead were women and children. Those figures come from a party to the war and are not independently verified.

Trump said he planned to speak with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. That call, and whatever follows it, is the thing to watch. Also pending: the coalition's promised retaliation, a final casualty and damage accounting, the identification of the victims, a reopening date for the airport, and whether the Houthis make good on threats against Saudi airspace and Red Sea shipping.