Attack on Riyadh airport kills 12 and wounds over 300, Saudi authorities say

An attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh killed 12 people and wounded more than 300, Saudi Arabia's civil aviation authorities said, according to NPR and France 24. France 24 reported the strike took place on Saturday and put the number of wounded at 309. NPR reported the authorities gave the toll early Sunday and said some of the injured were in critical condition. A missile struck an airport complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights, a regional official said on condition of anonymity, according to NPR.

The statement said the dead included four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a U.S. citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese, according to NPR. France 24 reported that a medical source at a local hospital said an Egyptian flight attendant was among those killed. Two doctors told AFP that several pilgrims headed to Mecca were among the wounded, France 24 reported.

The Saudi statement did not assign blame for the attack, NPR reported. A diplomatic source blamed Yemen's Houthis and attributed the attack to a Houthi missile, according to France 24. There was no immediate statement from the Houthis, who earlier on Saturday accused Saudi Arabia of striking Sanaa International Airport in the Houthi-held Yemeni capital, NPR reported.

Saudi civil aviation authorities said airport operations were suspended, and an official notice to aviators said the suspension was through midnight, according to NPR. Flights were diverted elsewhere, the Flightradar24 tracker said, and the United States, Britain, Germany, Australia and Canada were among the countries that warned citizens to avoid the airport. France 24 reported that health officials activated a rare mass call-up of doctors to deal with what a medical source called a "serious emergency situation".

Later on Saturday, the Saudi-led coalition said a projectile had fallen near King Fahd International Airport in Dammam and that a Houthi-launched ballistic missile had been intercepted in Al-Kharj governorate, southeast of Riyadh, according to NPR. U.S. President Donald Trump said he was evaluating whether the United States should join Saudi strikes against the Houthis. "We may. We're going to look at it," Trump said, according to NPR.

France 24 reported that the Houthis claimed a series of strikes on the airport on Thursday that killed three people and damaged a plane. NPR reported that Saturday's attack was the latest of several on the airport in the past week, and that the earlier attacks had killed four people. NPR described the attack as the deadliest in any Gulf Arab country since the start of the Iran war.