Houthi Missiles Target Riyadh Again as Saudi Defenses Intercept Two

Featured image: The Riyadh skyline, Saudi Arabia (file photo). Photo: B.alotaby, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Houthi missiles were aimed at Riyadh again on Thursday, Oct. 29, when Saudi air defenses intercepted two ballistic missiles fired from Yemen toward the Saudi capital, the Saudi-led coalition said. Saudi civil defense said one person suffered minor injuries and a house and a vehicle were damaged, the fourth Houthi strike attempt on the kingdom announced in four days.

“Air defenses intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles launched by the terrorist Houthi militia toward Riyadh,” coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki wrote on X, according to Al Arabiya and the Saudi Press Agency. Before the interception, civil defense pushed danger warnings to phones in Riyadh, Najran and Al-Kharj, then announced about 20 minutes later that the threat had passed, Arab News reported.

Houthi missiles on Riyadh: what happened Thursday

The coalition did not say what kind of missiles were used or where in Yemen they were launched from. The damage report came from civil defense: one minor injury, one house and one vehicle hit. Officials did not say whether falling debris caused the damage.

The attack came less than 48 hours after a similar one. On Tuesday evening, Oct. 27, debris from two intercepted ballistic missiles fell in Riyadh and damaged a building, a construction project and a vehicle. On Wednesday, the coalition said it shot down a ballistic missile aimed at Taif, a city in western Saudi Arabia near Mecca.

Early Friday, Oct. 30, the coalition said it had also intercepted and destroyed a Houthi drone launched toward the Mecca region, according to Anadolu Agency, citing al-Malki’s post on X.

By the numbers: a week of Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia

Source: Saudi-led coalition and Saudi civil defense statements as reported by Arab News, Al Arabiya and Anadolu Agency. Table: The Boston Report.

By a Boston Report count of those statements, Saudi officials announced five ballistic missiles and one drone intercepted in four days, an average of 1.5 projectiles a day. Riyadh was the target of four of the five missiles. Those announcements are one-sided, and the Houthis do not publish their own launch counts in a way that can be checked.

The worst single attack of the campaign remains the Oct. 10 missile strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, which killed 13 travelers and injured more than 300, Arab News reported. Thursday’s single minor injury shows how much a successful interception matters: the difference between the two attacks is whether the warhead reaches the ground.

Saudi strikes in Yemen and Houthi casualty claims

The fighting runs both ways. On Wednesday, the Houthi broadcaster Al-Masirah reported 14 people killed and 15 wounded, including women and children, in strikes it blamed on Saudi Arabia on a market and a petrol station in Jawf province in northern Yemen !Unverified claim, Al-Masirah (Houthi-run), AFP reported via Dawn. The Associated Press also attributed the toll to the Houthis. Saudi Arabia did not comment on those strikes in the reports reviewed, and the casualty figures could not be independently verified.

The same day, two ballistic missiles struck the perimeter of the airport in Aden, the seat of Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, wounding several civilians, government forces spokesman Majed Abdullah Al-Nazili said on X. He called it the sixth such attack on the airport. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Telegram that a Saudi military cargo plane carrying weapons was at the airport !Unverified claim, Yahya Saree (Telegram) (Houthi military spokesman); a local police source told AFP the aircraft was not hit and took off shortly afterward.

Why the Saudi-Houthi war reignited

A fragile truce in place since 2022 collapsed in July, after the Houthis let an Iranian plane land in Sanaa in defiance of Saudi control over Yemen’s airspace, according to AFP. The group later declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, began hitting its ships, territory and oil facilities, and seized Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast. Last month it launched a lightning ground offensive against the government in Aden.

The conflict is now a front in the wider Middle East war that began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February. Earlier this week, The Boston Report covered the Houthi claim of a strike on Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery and the government’s request for a UN probe into claimed toxic shells in Taiz.

What to watch next

Three things will show whether the pace holds: whether the Houthis keep targeting Riyadh at night, when warning alerts reach the most phones; whether any missile again gets through Saudi defenses, as one did at the airport on Oct. 10; and whether regional diplomacy with Iran, which backs the Houthis, produces any pause before the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 3.

Sources

• Arab News: 1 injured in Riyadh after Saudi air defenses shoot down Houthi missiles
• Al Arabiya: Saudi air defenses intercept two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting Riyadh
• Saudi Press Agency: coalition statement on the two missiles
• Anadolu Agency: Morning Briefing, Oct. 30, 2026
• Dawn (AFP): Saudi strikes hit Yemen as Houthis target Aden
• AP: Houthis say airstrikes killed 14 at a market in northern Yemen