Riyadh Airport Missile Strike: Saudi Arabia Must Talk to the Houthis to Buy Time

The choice of target is deliberate. Saudi Arabia has already shown that its oil system can absorb Houthi strikes. When the Strait of Hormuz was closed during the war with Iran, the kingdom moved crude west through its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea. An airport has no such alternative. When the capital’s airport closes, the country’s main door to the world closes with it.

The timing matters too. Riyadh is due to host a major meeting of global oil chiefs this month, Reuters reported, and the tenth Future Investment Initiative, the conference where the world’s largest companies come to hear Saudi Arabia’s economic plans, opens in Riyadh on October 26. Every diverted flight is a message to those guests. Closing the capital’s airport, even for a few hours, is an admission that it has a problem and that the capital is exposed.

The Houthis have also crossed a line that shows how they mean to fight. They are no longer aiming only at military targets. They are hitting civilians to raise the cost for Saudi Arabia and force it into further escalation. Their defence, that they “warned” international airlines to stay out of Saudi airspace and that whoever flies in must bear the consequences, is the height of criminality. Firing ballistic missiles at a passenger terminal is a war crime, which is exactly what the coalition spokesman, Major General Turki al-Malki, called it.

The battlefield explains why now. Yemen’s Saudi-backed government launched a major offensive against the Houthis on October 4. According to the Institute for the Study of War, the Giants Brigades have now retaken Perim (Mayun) Island at the mouth of the Bab el-Mandeb strait and are recovering the key ground around it. Around Taiz, a second major Houthi push to encircle the city has been beaten back. Each time the Houthis lose ground or fail in a counterattack, they answer by firing at a Saudi airport. They cannot win on the coast, so they want Saudi Arabia to pay in its cities.

A ballistic missile reaching a terminal in the capital says something uncomfortable about Saudi air defence. When interceptor stocks run low, defenders practise selective engagement: they track where an incoming missile will land and let it fall if the target is judged less important than the interceptor needed to stop it. The United States did this throughout the Iran war because Patriot interceptors were scarce. If Saudi air defences saw a ballistic missile heading for King Khalid International Airport and did not stop it, there is a serious gap in the kingdom’s Patriot stocks and in the systems its allies promised to deliver.

The roots go back to the Iran war. Saudi Arabia carried out more than 800 interceptions with Patriot missiles against drones and missiles launched from Iran, at the time when Western media mocked Gulf states for firing a $3 million to $4 million interceptor at a $10,000 drone. Reuters reported that the kingdom burned through about 86 percent of its PAC-3 stockpile, from roughly 2,800 interceptors to about 400. Saudi Arabia fields more than 100 Patriot launchers, but launchers without missiles do not stop anything. The war with Iran has now run for about eight months, and the Houthi campaign opened before the kingdom could restock.

The newer shield is not ready either, and this is where Saudi Arabia is most exposed. Saudi Arabia bought the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and commissioned its first battery in July 2025 out of seven on order. Only two THAAD batteries are working; the Saudi crews for the rest are still in training. The Houthi message is simple: we have found the gap, and instead of King Khalid alone we can hit any airport we choose, from Dammam to the far south. As Saudi Arabia blocks the Houthis’ own airspace, they say, they will deny Saudi Arabia its skies.

President Donald Trump called the attack “terrible” and said Washington may join Saudi strikes on the Houthis. “We may. We’re going to look at it,” he told reporters. “We just found out about the recent attack. So we’ll make a decision.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that an American was among the dead.

American entry would help. It would not decide the war. American intelligence would sharpen targeting; Saudi Arabia has about 200 intelligence data analysts working for its armed forces, and that cannot replace the US intelligence community. The US Air Force would join the Saudi air force, making the air campaign more efficient and more precise, and the pace of strikes on Houthi commanders would rise. But the United States is short of Patriot interceptors too. Saudi skies would stay exposed, and nothing about American strikes in Yemen would close that gap quickly.

There is also a price elsewhere. If American forces join Saudi Arabia, a strike on Iran will be delayed, and Washington will present the war on the Houthis as part of its war on Iran. Trump has already said the United States will not attack Iran before the November 3 midterm elections. Iran will sit back and watch the results. What the Houthis are doing now is exactly what Tehran wants, and it is a lesson to every Iranian militia in the region, from Hezbollah to the Shiite militias in Iraq. Iran is applauding the Houthis.

Saudi Arabia should start negotiating with the Houthis now. Many will call that treason. It is not. It is the right move at the right moment, because this war took Saudi Arabia by surprise in its timing, its method and its military demands.

On timing, the region had not finished the Iran war when the Houthis opened theirs. Saudi Arabia did not choose this fight. In July, a Mahan Air flight from Iran tried to land at Sanaa, and Saudi and Yemeni government forces struck the airport to block it. American intelligence confirmed that the people on board were Iranian experts, in breach of the arrangement Saudi Arabia had signed with the Houthis. The Houthis used that as the pretext to end the truce, declare a blockade of the kingdom and start hitting its ports, refineries and cities. Saudi Arabia was reacting; it was not the one escalating.

On military performance, Riyadh needs time to organise the forces of Yemen’s legitimate government and coordinate their ground units for larger offensives. It needs time to import air defences from its allies, whether from Türkiye, Pakistan, Egypt or even France, and those systems have not yet arrived. The Houthis, by contrast, clearly studied this war in advance and are executing a plan. Saudi Arabia needs time more than the Houthis do.

So talk. The aim is not a deal; the aim is to calm the front and slow the fighting while the kingdom reorganises. If the Houthis accept the terms, Saudi Arabia does not have to sign. If it does sign, it can sign and break the deal later, and no country in the world will come to Riyadh to ask why. Time spent organising works in Saudi Arabia’s favour. Time spent absorbing missiles with an exposed air defence does not.

Time bought is worth something only if it is spent on two targets. The first is the Iranian advisers. The Houthis are fighting like neither a militia nor a regular army; their campaign follows a plan drawn up in Iran. The advisers sent by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have plainly been in Yemen for a long time and have combat experience against Saudi forces. They can be found around Taiz, where they are supervising the attempt to encircle the city. They must be killed, one after another, until they flee home or none are left. If they die, the war turns 180 degrees, because with flights grounded and Iran itself expecting to be struck soon, the Guards cannot send replacements.

The second target is the weapons depots. The Houthis store missiles and launchers in caves and build them in factories under the mountains, and they bring them out when needed. But the Houthis are not Iran. Their stockpiles are finite and the territory they control is limited, centred on Sanaa and the northern highlands. Destroy more than a few depots and they will run short of weapons. The Saudi military has been impressive in hitting targets identified by its intelligence; the coalition reports hundreds of strikes. Its weakness is air defence, and that is what the time must buy.

The battle for Taiz remains the hinge of this war. The Houthis are betting that if they take Taiz, the war will end on their terms or Riyadh will come to the table. Denying them the city is what turns bought time into leverage.