Black smoke seen near Riyadh amid air raid alerts in Saudi Arabia

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: © France 24 03:30 Issued on: 19/09/2026 - 17:16 ⁠Flames and plumes of smoke ‌were ⁠seen ‌rising near ⁠Riyadh airport this afternoon with flights cancelled and delayed. This as fighting between Saudi-backed government forces and Iran-backed Houthi rebels has killed 48 people in recent hours. The rebels staged a lightning offensive this month, seizing swathes of territory in Yemen and launching a barrage of missiles and drones toward Saudi Arabia. Details and analysis by FRANCE 24 international affairs editor, Jamie Smith-Maillet. Keywords for this article