Saudi Arabia reopens Riyadh airport more than two weeks after Houthi strikes killed 17

Saudi Arabia has reopened its main airport to international flights more than two weeks after strikes by Yemen's Houthi rebels knocked the facility out of service. King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh opened terminals 1 and 2 for domestic and international traffic on Sunday, after a week of limited domestic flights. The attacks continued regardless: early on Sunday, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki said air defenses had intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile and a drone fired toward the capital, along with ten ballistic missiles headed for the southern region.

In early October, Houthi fire hit a complex at the airport housing two other terminals, killing 17 people and wounding more than 330. The rebels have kept drones and missiles moving toward the Saudi capital since, and the reopening took place between announced intercepts rather than after them.

The airport war now runs alongside the tanker war. Iran says seven oil tankers are on fire or damaged in the Strait of Hormuz, and fears are growing of a return to war. Whoever controls the strait sets the West's fuel bills; a missile over the Saudi capital sets the price of flying through it. The kingdom that pumps the oil and hosts the aviation is absorbing the pressure on both axes, and the October strike — 17 dead inside an airport complex — showed what air defense stops and what it lets through.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told diplomats in Tehran on Sunday that new threats of war would not budge Iran from its policies, and warned the United States against renewing strikes. 'After the recent war, nothing will be like the past,' he said, adding that Tehran stands ready to cooperate with its Arab neighbours in the Gulf.

Terminals 1 and 2 welcomed passengers back on Sunday. The missile and the drone destroyed over the capital were announced the same day.