King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh resumed operations at two of its terminals on Sunday, 15 days after a Houthi attack killed 13 people and closed Saudi Arabia’s main gateway — and hours after the group warned that the airport remains a military target.
Terminal 1 has been designated for domestic flights and Terminal 2 for international flights, Hiru News reported, citing foreign media. Al Jazeera reported that the airport announced the resumption late on Saturday, with flights returning the following day.
Operations had been suspended completely since the attack of 10 October — just over two weeks of total closure at the kingdom’s busiest airport. (Hiru describes the shutdown as lasting “close to two weeks”; measured from 10 to 25 October it runs to 15 days.)
The warning that came with it
The reopening has not been accepted by the Houthis. Military spokesman Yahya Saree was explicit:
“The Yemeni Armed Forces warn all international, regional and local airlines — as well as staff and travellers — against using King Khalid airport in Riyadh, as it is unsafe and serves as a military target for our forces.”
Hiru’s account carries the same position in summary, reporting that the Iran-aligned group insists the airport remains an “ඉලක්කයක්” — a target — and that it will continue to strike it.
This is not a residual threat left over from the closure. Al Jazeera reports that on Saturday — the day the reopening was announced — the Houthis said they had targeted three Saudi airports, including one in Riyadh, along with energy installations, a pipeline and an airbase. The group has also warned aviation companies away from Saudi airspace generally, saying any aircraft operating there, except over Mecca and Medina, is a target.
The toll has moved since this desk last reported it
Both filings put the 10 October death toll at 13, with Al Jazeera giving more than 300 wounded.
When this desk reported the attack on 11 October, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority had put the figures at 12 dead and 309 injured, and the published nationality list accounted for all 12 — none of them Sri Lankan. The increase by one is consistent with a later death among the critically injured, but no filing explains it, and neither says whether the revised toll changes the nationality breakdown.
Why this matters in Colombo
Riyadh is one of two Saudi destinations SriLankan Airlines has had grounded since 9 October. The carrier has now set and abandoned three resumption dates and is currently committed only to 1 November, citing the regional security situation rather than any named incident.
Sunday’s reopening is the first material change in conditions at one of those two airports since that decision. It does not resolve it: the airport that is open is also the airport the Houthis have just named as a target, and King Fahd International at Dammam — SriLankan’s other suspended destination — was itself attacked on 22 October.
Saudi Arabia is among the largest destinations for Sri Lankan migrant workers, and these are the national carrier’s only direct services to the kingdom.
Not reported
Neither filing says when the airport’s remaining terminals will reopen, which airlines actually operated on Sunday, or what security measures changed to permit the resumption. Neither says whether SriLankan Airlines will now fly on 2 November, and the airline has made no statement since the reopening.
Ada Derana has returned a CloudFront error to this desk for 42 consecutive days, so any filing it made could not be dated and is not cited. The Daily Mirror had not filed on the reopening in its breaking-news listing at the time of writing.
