ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Sunday advised travelers and personnel to stay away from Saudi airports, warning that they “vulnerable to targeting,” after a strike on Riyadh’s international airport killed at least a dozen a day earlier.

Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree warned “all airlines, experts, employees, workers, and travelers against using Saudi airports and airspace, as they are vulnerable to targeting and constitute a theater of operations for our forces, with the exception of the airports of Mecca and Medina.”

Earlier in the day, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) reported that a “brutal attack” targeting the airport the day prior “resulted in the deaths of 12 individuals,” and injured 309 others.

The attack is considered the deadliest to target the country in more than a decade.

In September, the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said it intercepted and destroyed a “hostile drone,” launched by Houthi rebels, before it entered the airspace of Mecca, censuring the targeting of the holiest city in Islam as “a disgraceful act.”

The Houthis denied targeting Mecca, describing the Saudi allegations as “fabrications and lies,” and stressed that the group poses no threat to the holy sites and that their operations solely target oil facilities and military bases.

“We urge everyone to take our warnings seriously, and Saudi Arabia bears responsibility for any failed attempts to intercept them,” he stressed.

The attacks deep inside Saudi territory come amid a counter-offensive launched by the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, seeking to push the rebels out of the coastline along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where the Houthis have sought to disrupt Saudi maritime traffic in the Red Sea.

The conflict between Riyadh and the Houthis had lain largely dormant since a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022. However, the Iran-backed group blamed Saudi Arabia for an airstrike on Sanaa International Airport in July, setting in motion a chain of events that culminated in a large-scale Houthi offensive that expanded their effective control over war-wracked Yemen.