Article 48 · Middle East
Trump says he will act after the elections as Houthi missiles hit Riyadh's airport and Aramco's headquarters
The Houthis, an armed movement that holds large parts of Yemen, have struck the capital's airport and the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. Washington has condemned the attacks, and President Trump wrote that he would act once the November 3rd midterm elections were over.
Who the Houthis are and what they hit
The Houthis are an armed movement that controls large parts of Yemen. Reuters calls them Iran-backed. They have fought Yemen's Saudi-backed government in a civil war since 2014. Saudi Arabia is their neighbour, and it is home to Saudi Aramco, the state oil company that Reuters calls the world's largest.
Since October 8th the Houthis have struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, four times. The strike on October 10th killed 13 people, according to Reuters, the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in a decade. More than 300 people were wounded in the attacks, and the airport is closed. Fortune puts the death toll at least 20, including one US citizen. The counts differ by outlet.
On October 13th a Houthi missile hit the Aramco headquarters in Dhahran, in eastern Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry reported a limited fire and no injuries. Three people with direct knowledge told Reuters that the damage was extensive and the fire spread across several floors. Operations at the complex continued normally.
Figure 1 shows the flight cancellations.
Flights cancelled after the Riyadh airport attacks
What Washington has said and not done
The United States has condemned the attacks, and it has announced no strike on the Houthis. On October 13th Trump wrote on Truth Social that the Houthis were behaving very badly and accused them of trying to drive up oil prices before the midterm elections. He also wrote, "I'll be there after the elections, and I will never forget!"
Trump also said he might ask Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to intervene in support of Saudi interests. Vektora's alert on the attacks reads his words as putting any American response after the election. That is the alert's reading, and Trump did not name a date for action.
Fortune quotes analysts who see two possibilities. Dan Pickering, who runs the research firm Pickering Energy Partners, said it was not clear whether the pause was the "calm before the storm" or a decision not to acknowledge any storm. Fernando Ferreira of Rapidan Energy Group said there were not many good options, because the Houthis keep their capabilities well underground.
What to watch
The record in these sources ends in mid-October. It shows no US strike in Yemen, and it does not show what happened after the elections on November 3rd.
The Houthis said they would keep attacking airports and oil sites in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi-led coalition has already struck Houthi fuel sites near Sanaa, the Yemeni capital. The questions are whether the United States joins those strikes, and whether the Houthis hit more of the Saudi energy system.