The Laurentian
China & the Pacific··1 min read

Seventeen Dead in Riyadh as Escalating Missile Strikes Test Saudi Defences

Seventeen people have died and over 330 have been injured in twenty attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh since October 1, according to the Saudi-led coalition.

Seventeen people are dead in Riyadh after twenty separate attacks struck King Khalid International Airport since the first of October.

More than 330 people have been injured in the capital since the campaign began, the Saudi-led coalition said Thursday. The strikes on the capital's main aviation hub form part of a widening series of assaults across the region — including a separate missile strike that killed 25 soldiers at a military training camp in Yemen's southeastern province of Shabwa on Monday.

Five more people died Thursday when the Houthi group struck the presidential palace compound in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, wounding 16 others. The Houthi group claimed Saudi military officers were killed or wounded in that palace compound attack. In Riyadh, the persistent targeting of the international airport over a two-week span points to a capability that regional air defences are struggling to blunt.

Our trade routes and energy markets absorb the cost of every missile that lands near a capital city. Ottawa watches these conflicts through an American lens — treating them as distant security footnotes rather than direct shocks to global commerce. We need our own reading of the Middle East — one that looks at the actual shipping lanes and oil terminals our economy depends on, rather than echoing whatever Washington happens to be worrying about this week.

Seventeen dead in the Saudi capital represent just the latest toll in a war our allies swore they could contain.

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