SAUDI COALITION INTERCEPTS MISSILES HEADED FOR RIYADH

The Saudi-led military coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed a missile launched towards Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, as the Houthi armed group said it had carried out further attacks on the kingdom. Coalition spokesman Major-General Turki al-Maliki announced the interception on X on Wednesday. One report described the missile as ballistic, while another, citing Reuters, said a cruise missile was intercepted and destroyed in the Al-Kharj Governorate, after the coalition earlier said it had destroyed three cruise missiles heading for Riyadh. Saudi Arabia's civil defence agency said four people, including two women and a child, were wounded in Riyadh by debris from two intercepted Houthi missiles. The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, said they had targeted facilities belonging to the Saudi national oil company Aramco in Dhahran, an Aramco refinery in Riyadh, and Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport.

Saudi Arabia's General Directorate of Civil Defence issued two alerts through its national early warning platform, one covering the Al-Kharj governorate and one covering Riyadh, before later saying the danger had passed. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Energy confirmed that an Aramco administrative building in Dhahran had been hit. The latest exchanges followed two separate strikes on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport days earlier, which reports said killed 14 people and injured more than 300 others. Further Houthi attacks were reported on Abha International Airport, where two people were killed, as well as on other Aramco facilities.

Al Jazeera's correspondent Zein Basravi, reporting from Doha, said any notion that the coalition could confine the conflict to Yemen had been undermined over the previous ten days, during which multiple sites inside Saudi Arabia were targeted. In that period, attacks and intercepted missiles have reportedly reached the Saudi capital, two international airports and Aramco oil infrastructure in Dhahran and Riyadh. The coalition said it continues to intercept missiles aimed at Riyadh, while the Houthis said they continue to carry out strikes on Saudi targets. The Saudi civil defence agency said the immediate danger from the latest intercepted missiles had passed.