When airports are targeted, the mask falls off Al-Houthi

In the passenger lounge at King Khalid Airport, people were waiting for their flights. Many of them were wearing Ihram, heading to Mecca with reassured hearts, and others were returning to their families or going to work. Then came the Houthi terrorist attack, and twelve martyrs and more than three hundred wounded from eight nationalities fell. They were Saudis, Bangladeshis, Americans, Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, Palestinians, and Sudanese. They were neither soldiers nor military targets, but ordinary human beings. Behind them are mothers waiting and children asking when their father will return. Whoever bombs this scene is not fighting a war but committing a crime, and it is not an isolated attack. It was the third attack on the same airport in one week after attacks on Abha Airport and other sites. The terrorist group does not hide its approach, but rather announced its warning to international airlines against using Saudi airspace. This is a declared threat to civil aviation and an explicit declaration that the lives of passengers are a pressure card in its hand. There is no argument that justifies this act and no context that mitigates it. International humanitarian law is clear in protecting civilians. Civilian objects and civilian airports are at the forefront, and whoever deliberately targets them puts himself outside all custom and all legitimacy, and the label of terrorism is applied to him unambiguously. This is what the coalition forces said when they described the attack as a terrorist act that will be responded to decisively. Solidarity came as expected. The Arab League, Qatar, Bahrain, the Emirates, Kuwait, and Jordan condemned Washington and the European Union. The Gulf Cooperation Council called on the international community to take a firm and deterrent stance, but the condemnation, no matter how sincere, is Words remain if they do not turn into action, and what is required today is for this consensus to become real accountability, actual pressure, and the closure of the arms and financing outlets that provideThe group has its ability to harm, and here is the crux of the issue. Al-Houthi does not threaten Saudi Arabia alone, but rather threatens the international peace and security system. When the airports of Riyadh and Abha are struck, global air navigation is the target, and when the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb corridors are exposed to danger, the supply chains and energy markets pay the price. Whoever disrupts civil aviation in a capital has the same logic to disrupt it in any other capital. The danger crosses borders and is not faced with fragmented positions. However, the Kingdom proves once again that Its power does not negate its wisdom, as it maintains its full right to defense and deterrence, as it has confirmed in its statements since the beginning of the escalation, but it does not close the door to calm, and the recent contact between the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers, which discussed the escalation and ways to contain its repercussions, is evidence that Riyadh is keeping its channels open, and Tehran, for its part, has announced its readiness to help start talks to reduce the escalation, and this openness is not weakness but a studied political calculation, as the Kingdom realizes that sustainable security is not created by missiles alone and that every war ends at the table. Negotiate, but it also realizes that serious negotiation has a condition, first of all, which is to stop targeting civilians. One party cannot ask for calm with one hand and fire missiles at airports with the other. Houthi must choose. Either he will be a party to a political settlement that preserves Yemen and protects the region, or he will remain a threat that calls for a comprehensive international confrontation. Anything else is an illusion. The blood of the martyrs of King Khalid Airport demands that the world not be content with condemning, but that it should protect the innocent and hold accountable those who targeted them.