Pilgrims caught up in Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia

By Timour Azhari

RIYADH, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Pilgrims in Saudi Arabia to visit Islam’s holiest sites may not have anticipated being caught up in an air war, but some experienced an attack by Yemen’s Houthis first hand and others have been forced to change their plans.

Footage of the massive blast that killed 13 people and wounded 300 in a Riyadh airport departure terminal struck by a Houthi missile on Saturday showed many passengers attired in the simple white clothes of Muslim pilgrims travelling to Mecca.

Saudi media reported that a Bangladeshi imam leading a group of dozens of pilgrims was killed and others wounded in the attack.

While the Houthis have promised not to attack either Mecca or Medina, the two holiest places in Islam that attract millions of pilgrims each year, they are targeting other Saudi airports in what they call retaliation for Saudi attacks on them.

“I feel deeply worried for my family and myself,” said Fadi Anwar, a Jordanian living in Mecca sitting in the courtyard of the main mosque in Mecca who was wearing the pilgrim’s robes. “We constantly receive warnings (phone alerts from the authorities) and it causes us great anxiety.”

Saudi officials have said the kingdom is safe and that the security of visitors is valued above all else, an offer of reassurance even as Western governments have warned against using most Saudi airports.

PILGRIMS VISIT MECCA THROUGHOUT THE YEAR

Although most international pilgrims fly directly into Medina or Jeddah airports, many others travel via Saudi Arabia’s other main air hubs, including the many pilgrims who already live in the kingdom.

Al Amin Hassan Mohammed from Sudan, who was visiting Saudi-based family members before a pilgrimage to Mecca, said he had been in Riyadh during Saturday’s attack, which sent him and neighbours onto the street.

“We were tired and worried. We went out of the houses and we talked with each other,” he said.

Mohammed, who has a married daughter in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province city of Dammam, close to Dhahran where the Houthis targeted a Saudi Aramco building on Tuesday, has made the pilgrimage to Mecca before.

Like Anwar and others visiting the holy city now, outside of the annual hajj that is a requirement for all able-bodied Muslims in their lifetime, he is making a lesser pilgrimage known as umrah that can take place at any time of year.

The vast courtyard of the enormous main mosque in Mecca was a swirl of pilgrims in their white robes on Tuesday, as they circled the black cube of the Kaaba, the point towards which all Muslims face to pray.

Mecca draws millions of people each year, both during hajj and for umrah, from both inside Saudi Arabia and overseas, and the attacks have made some nervous.

“May God keep this away from us and from all Muslims, both in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere,” Anwar said.

TRAVEL DISRUPTION HITS BUSINESSES, EMBASSIES AND TOURISM

The strikes between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-allied Houthis, resulting from the reignition of Yemen’s civil war as a spillover from the US-Iran conflict, have caused Saudi Arabia to ground many flights.

Schools in Riyadh have been switched to online learning this week and some offices have told staff to work from home.

The disruption has been particularly acute for those trying to travel, a group that includes pilgrims, business figures attending Saudi Arabia’s many high-profile conferences, Saudi tourists wishing to go on holiday and foreign residents wanting to fly home.

“We’ve had some trips postponed. We had friends who were travelling; it was delayed, they didn’t travel,” said Mohammed. His friends had been planning to fly via Riyadh but in the end they took a boat back to Sudan from Jeddah, he said.

Many people who had planned to fly from Riyadh are reviewing their options, with some making the four-hour trip to Bahrain, the seven-hour drive to Qatar or the 10-hour drive to Dubai.

A senior executive Reuters spoke to on Wednesday was busy arranging transport for foreign employees, sending them by road to Doha in Qatar for onward flights.

A diplomat in Riyadh said several embassies had also used Doha for trips to and from Saudi Arabia over recent days, including for staff temporarily leaving with their families.

The representative of a company organising transport to Doha and Dubai said fares to those destinations had doubled.

Being prepared to pay is no guarantee of travel – in the early phases of the US-Iran war, Iranian fire grounded many flights around the Gulf and that direct conflict may erupt again with US President Donald Trump threatening to resume strikes.

(Reporting by Timour Azhari in Riyadh and Reuters Saudi Arabia newsroom; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)