Saudi air defences intercepted two missiles fired towards the capital, Riyadh, in the early hours of Tuesday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said, in the latest escalation of a cross-border campaign that has now reached the kingdom's oil pipelines, its eastern oil heartland and its southern border region in a single night.
The coalition said its air defences destroyed a ballistic missile and a cruise missile aimed at Riyadh. In separate statements, it said a second ballistic missile fired towards the kingdom's southern region had also been intercepted and destroyed, and that a drone had been brought down over the oil-rich Eastern Province.
Coalition spokesman Major-General Turki al-Maliki announced the interceptions in a series of posts on the social media platform X, blaming the Iran-aligned Houthi movement for Tuesday's attacks. The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the missile and drone launches, according to reports from the region.
Saudi Civil Defence had earlier issued an early-warning alert for Riyadh, before later saying the threat in the capital had passed. Residents of the city received text-message alerts instructing them to take shelter because of an "aerial threat", and multiple explosions were heard across Riyadh, the AFP news agency reported. Alerts were also issued for the south-western cities of Abha and Khamis Mushait, and for Dammam, Al-Ahsa and Buqayq in the east, before the civil defence agency said the danger had passed in each area.
No casualties were reported from the interceptions. The coalition said there had been no damage from the missiles aimed at the capital, and officials stressed that the air defence network had destroyed the incoming weapons before they could reach their targets.
The attacks came only hours after the Houthis struck a key East-West oil pipeline, according to Al Jazeera, which reported damage to the strategic link that carries crude from Saudi Arabia's eastern oilfields to the Red Sea coast. The pipeline attack marked a widening of the Houthis' target list beyond airports, ports and city centres to the energy infrastructure at the centre of the kingdom's economy.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for a series of operations overnight, saying his forces had fired ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at targets including King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. He also said Houthi forces had shot down a Saudi CH-4 reconnaissance drone over Al-Jawf, describing it as the fourth aircraft of that type downed since the escalation began.
Meanwhile, the Houthi-run Saba news agency reported that Saudi Arabia had carried out air strikes on the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, hitting the al-Mufazir gas station in the Jadar district north of the city and a building belonging to the state oil company in southern Sanaa. Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the reported strikes.
The overnight exchanges followed the Houthi attack on Sunday on an Aramco office building in Riyadh's King Abdullah Financial District, which blew out windows across several floors of the tower. A Saudi official inspected the damaged Aramco building early on Tuesday, and Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates condemned the Houthi attacks on Monday, reaffirming their support for Saudi Arabia's security and territorial integrity.
Hostilities between the kingdom and the Houthis resumed in July, opening another front in the wider Middle East war triggered by the United States and Israel's attacks on Iran in February. The Houthis advanced in September towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the strategic chokepoint at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, and have since stepped up missile and drone strikes on Saudi airports, ports and oil facilities, while the Saudi-led coalition has carried out air strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
The escalation has already disrupted daily life and travel across the region. Airlines have suspended flights to Saudi cities, the coalition has repeatedly intercepted missiles and drones over Riyadh, Najran, Makkah and Madinah, and the Houthis have warned airlines away from Saudi airspace. The United States has also been drawn in, carrying out strikes on Iran's Qeshm island overnight on Sunday while President Donald Trump was due to meet Qatar, the mediator trying to revive talks to end the eight-month-old war.
What happens next is likely to depend on whether the missile exchanges continue to escalate or whether diplomacy can catch up. The coalition has shown it can intercept most incoming weapons, but each new attack on energy infrastructure raises the stakes for the global oil market and for the millions of people living in the cities now receiving shelter alerts. For now, Saudi officials say the defences held through the night — but the widening geography of the attacks, from the pipeline to the Eastern Province, suggests the campaign is far from over.
