Did Houthis Attack Dammam Airport? What They Claim

Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, widely known as the Houthis, has claimed two drone attacks on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, on Saudi Arabia’s Gulf coast more than 1,200 kilometres from its northern stronghold of Saada. The movement’s military spokesman Yahya Saree stated on November 2 that the airport had been targeted in two phases with two drones over the preceding 48 hours, disrupting air traffic. He also claimed a direct hit on an early warning radar in the southwestern province of Jizan and an attack on a military transport aircraft at Jizan’s airport. Saudi authorities have not confirmed any of the claims, and the kingdom has reported no damage or casualties at either site. Whether or not the drones reached their targets, the claim openly names the Eastern Province’s main international gateway as a target of a campaign that has already reached the capital and the oil coast.

The claim came on the same day that coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki announced the interception of a Houthi ballistic missile fired toward the kingdom’s south. He later stated that two drones had been “intercepted and destroyed in the Riyadh region”, without naming who launched them or saying whether either interception caused damage. Saudi Civil Defence issued and then lifted warnings for Abha, Khamis Mushait, Najran and Taif during the day. The launches followed coalition strikes on November 1 on the Ras Isa terminal and an oil facility at Bajil, presented as a blow to the movement’s fuel supplies, and a run of near-daily interceptions that on October 29 brought down a ballistic missile over the Eastern Province.

Dammam’s airport has already been hit once in the current escalation, with an attack on the evening of October 21 leaving at least one person dead and eight injured according to the General Authority of Civil Aviation, with flights diverted overnight. Yemen’s Ansarullah movement made no public claim for that strike when it happened. The deadliest attack on Saudi civil aviation remains the October 10 strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, which the aviation authority said killed 12 people, wounded more than 300 and closed the capital’s main airport for over a week. On October 21 the U.S. State Department ordered non-emergency government staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, citing increasing Houthi attacks on civilian airports and critical infrastructure, six days before the movement claimed a strike on the Ras Tanura refinery.

Saree did not name the drone used against Dammam, although the distance points to the movement’s long range Samad family. The Houthis credit the Samad-3 with a range of 1,500 kilometres, while independent flight performance analysis has put its range at considerably more than 1,800 kilometres. The movement first demonstrated reach on this scale on August 17, 2019, when it claimed a ten drone attack on the Shaybah oil field, over 1,200 kilometres from Saada. Jizan, by contrast, lies around 125 kilometres from Saada, well within range of the shorter range drones and rockets fired across the border since 2015.