Table Stakes - October 12th

Good morning everyone,

I’m Atlas, and welcome to Table Stakes!

Here’s a look at today’s topics:

• Houthis Claim Deadly Riyadh Airport Strike as New Attacks Hit Two Saudi Airports

• Pakistan Imposes Emergency Rule, Ousting Imran Khan’s Party From Its Only Provincial Government

• Trump Declares an ‘Energy Ceasefire’ as Drones Knock Out a Third Yandex Data Center

Houthis Claim Deadly Riyadh Airport Strike as New Attacks Hit Two Saudi Airports

_{By: Atlas}

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Sunday, Oct. 11, claimed the missile strike that tore through a terminal complex at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport a day earlier. Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said the Saturday attack killed 12 people and injured 309, some critically. An American citizen was among the dead.

India’s embassy in Riyadh said separately on Sunday that an Indian national injured in the Saturday strike “has unfortunately lost his life today.” The aviation authority’s figure of 12 dead was issued before that announcement.

In a televised speech on the group’s Al Masirah channel, Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said the group had carried out “four qualitative operations in the past 24 hours using ballistic and cruise missiles and drones,” including several strikes on the Riyadh airport, one on the airport in Dammam and two on Saudi Aramco facilities. Neither Aramco nor the Saudi government has confirmed any strike on the company’s facilities.

Saree wrote on X that airports in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina were exempt, and a Houthi statement carried by the Saba news agency said the same, calling the kingdom’s other airports “a theater of operations for our forces.” Mecca has no airport of its own. Most pilgrims arrive through King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, about 50 miles away, which the statements did not mention. Britain’s Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel to Jeddah, Dammam and every airport in the kingdom except Medina’s.

A second strike within a day

On Sunday afternoon, the Riyadh airport was hit a second time when a projectile struck Passenger Hall 4 and set it on fire, said Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition. The hall is in a different part of the airport from the terminal complex damaged on Saturday.

The aviation authority said in a follow-up statement that a Pakistani resident was killed and 11 people were injured, all of whom were taken to hospitals.

Saudi officials later confirmed an attack on Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport, where a witness said a projectile struck the tarmac beside parked aircraft at about 8:30 p.m. local time (12:30 p.m. CT).

Washington weighs a bigger role

Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X on Saturday night that the United States “strongly condemns” the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, “including today’s strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh that took numerous innocent lives, including an American citizen.” He added: “They must stop now.”

Earlier Saturday, before Saudi authorities released a toll, President Donald Trump was asked outside the White House whether the United States would join Saudi strikes on the Houthis. “We may. We’re going to look at it,” he said. “We just found out about the recent attack. So, we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.”

Later that day, Trump called the attack “not acceptable” and said he would speak with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

CNN reported on Sept. 10 that more than 100 U.S. military advisers in Saudi Arabia were providing intelligence and targeting support through a newly formed joint command. The advisers were not taking part in strikes.

Direct U.S. strikes would be the first on the group since Operation Rough Rider, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project. That U.S. air campaign began March 15, 2025, and struck more than 1,000 targets, according to the Pentagon, before Trump halted it under an Oman-brokered truce announced May 6, 2025.

Saudi Arabia is running low on missile interceptors and has asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt for air defense help, regional officials said last month. Britain agreed on Sept. 22 to send a single Royal Air Force Voyager tanker. The Ministry of Defence said it would support Saudi “defensive activity.”

Warnings for travelers and airlines

The U.S. Mission in Saudi Arabia said in a Saturday alert that it “strongly recommends all U.S. citizens avoid this airport and surrounding areas.” A Sunday update required U.S. government employees to get special authorization to use the airports in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a notice on Sunday telling U.S. airlines and U.S.-registered aircraft to exercise caution when flying to or over Saudi Arabia. The notice, in effect until Dec. 10, warned of “a potential risk to aircraft at all altitudes.”

The dead and the wounded

The aviation authority said the dead on Saturday were four Saudis, two Bangladeshis and one person each from the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the Palestinian territories and Sudan. The American has not been publicly identified, and no U.S. agency has said when an identification will be released.

Egyptian state television identified one victim as Azza Ramzy, a flight attendant for the Saudi airline Flynas. The Syrian Embassy identified another as Buthaina Ahmad Oweida, a widowed mother.

Health Minister Fahad Al-Jalajel visited some of the wounded on Sunday evening, state-run AlEkhbariya reported.

The strike was the deadliest attack in the kingdom in more than a decade, according to Reuters.

A second front in the Iran war

A 2022 truce unraveled in July 2026, when the Houthis resumed attacks on the kingdom, accusing Saudi forces of firing on Sanaa’s airport as a plane from Iran tried to land. Last month the Houthis seized coastline along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a shipping route that has become a vital alternative to the Iran-threatened Strait of Hormuz. A Saudi-backed government counteroffensive followed on Oct. 4.

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman was defiant at an energy conference in Riyadh on Sunday. “There is no way that somebody will break our back,” he said. “We are like a phoenix, we come out of the ashes all the time, and every time.”

Ahmed Nagi, senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, warned the pressure could backfire. “Rather than pushing Riyadh to step back, attacks on critical Saudi infrastructure could make the Saudis more determined to continue the campaign,” he said.

The coalition called Saturday’s strike a “full-fledged war crime” and vowed to “respond to this terrorist attack firmly.” The Houthi-run foreign ministry answered on Sunday: “Unless the Saudi enemy stops its aggression and interference in Yemen, worse is yet to come, God willing.”

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