American among 12 killed in Riyadh airport missile strike as Trump weighs hitting Houthis

A missile slammed into the main airport in Saudi Arabia's capital on Saturday, killing 12 people including a U.S. citizen and wounding more than 300. Within hours President Trump said Washington was weighing whether to join Saudi airstrikes on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, a step that would pull the United States deeper into a widening regional war.

What happened at the airport

The strike hit a complex at King Khalid International Airport that holds terminals 3 and 4, which serve domestic flights. Saudi civil aviation officials said early Sunday that some of the wounded were in critical condition. Besides the American, the dead included four Saudis, two people from Bangladesh and one person each from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Sudan and the Palestinian territories.

Officials did not name who fired the missile. Earlier in the week, though, the Iran-backed Houthis took responsibility for strikes on the same airport that killed three Saudis, a pilot among them. Saturday's toll made it the deadliest single attack on any Gulf Arab nation since the Iran war started.

Flights were halted through midnight and police sealed every entrance. The United States, Britain, Germany, Australia and Canada all told their citizens to stay away from the airport. Later that day the Saudi-led coalition said a projectile came down near the airport in Dammam and a ballistic missile was shot down southeast of Riyadh.

Trump weighs a U.S. role

Speaking shortly after the strike, Trump said the United States might join the fight. "We may. We're going to look at it," he said, adding that his team had only just learned of the attack and would decide quickly.

American help so far has included sharing intelligence, identifying targets and planning for the coalition offensive that began a week ago. The kingdom is running short of missile interceptors and has asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt to send air defense help. U.S. stockpiles have also shrunk during the fighting with Iran.

The question lands as the Pentagon faces scrutiny over its own war toll. Defense officials this week corrected their casualty database to show 21 American service members have died since the Iran war began and 865 have been wounded.

Wider fallout

Fighting in Yemen has intensified as Saudi warplanes back government troops trying to retake ground the Houthis seized along the Red Sea coast. That shipping lane is a key detour around the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has been hitting vessels. The rebels warned airlines this week "for the last time" to stay out of Saudi airspace.

Several carriers had already paused service to Saudi cities and hundreds of Riyadh flights were scrapped in a single day. European aviation regulators warned that missile and drone fire raises the danger that a passenger jet could be mistaken for a target. Oil markets are watching closely since Saudi Arabia is the world's largest crude exporter.