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Two people were killed and eight others injured in an attack at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, eastern Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday evening, the kingdom’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said, according to the BBC.
The dead were a Saudi citizen and an Indian resident. The injured were Saudi, Indian, Yemeni, Bangladeshi and Nepalese nationals.
GACA did not specify the type of attack. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement has repeatedly targeted Saudi airports with drones and missiles.
Earlier on Wednesday, two people were killed by debris from a drone intercepted over Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, where Dammam is located, the Saudi energy ministry said.
The ministry said the drone had attempted to target a processing facility operated by Saudi state oil company “Aramco” in the Shaybah oil field. A contractor’s vehicle was set on fire. The ministry identified those killed as residents from the Philippines and Nepal.
Four more drones were intercepted on Wednesday night, according to the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s government in its war against the Houthis.
The Houthis did not immediately comment. They have previously said their attacks on Saudi airports, energy facilities and military bases were retaliation for deadly Saudi air strikes on areas they control in western Yemen.
Saudi authorities say at least 21 people have been killed in Houthi attacks on the kingdom’s airports since the start of October. A missile strike on Riyadh’s international airport on 10 October killed 13 people and injured 308, making it Saudi Arabia’s deadliest attack in more than a decade.
The Houthis’ military spokesman said on Wednesday that the group had targeted military equipment at an airport in the southern Yemeni city of al-Mukalla. The group said the equipment had been transported by Saudi Arabia for use by forces supporting Yemen’s government.
Meanwhile, Houthi-run media reported that at least six people had been killed and 11 injured in air and artillery strikes during the previous 24 hours.
Yemen’s Houthi-run health ministry says 155 civilians have been killed since the country’s devastating civil war flared up three months ago. The government’s health ministry has reported at least 1,574 deaths in the conflict over the same period. The UN says more than 256,000 people have also been displaced.
The war began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the internationally recognised government from the capital, Sanaa. The conflict escalated the following year after a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened in an attempt to restore the government’s rule.
A four-year informal ceasefire began to unravel in July, when the Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.
The Houthis said they were retaliating for what they called a Saudi blockade of their territory, as well as an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the kingdom.
The conflict escalated in September after the Houthis seized part of Yemen’s south-western Red Sea coast near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a chokepoint for global shipping. Their advance contributed to a rise in oil prices following six months of war between the US, Israel and Iran.
Earlier this month, forces supporting the government said they had retaken territory overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait in a counter-offensive backed by Saudi air strikes.
Fierce fighting is continuing in the area, around the besieged government-controlled city of Taiz, and in the northern provinces of Marib, al-Jawf, Dhale and Shabwa.
