The Scene
Riyadh Season — the Saudi capital’s biggest suite of events that had been key to its tourism push — opens next week with concerts, UFC, the Epcot-esque Boulevard World, and the world’s top ranked tennis players set to compete at the Six Kings Slam.
Since 2019, it has been the capital’s answer to anyone asking whether Riyadh is the place to be. After the Houthi strikes over the weekend, residents are asking themselves the same question.
Traffic on King Fahd Road is lighter and some companies — mostly those based in the King Abdullah Financial District — told staff to work from home on Sunday. Schools in the city have moved to remote learning for the week, with no clear date yet on when students will return to class.
When I ask Saudis — friends, relatives, and sources — how they are doing, most say: , thanks to God, the catchall for everything from the greatest blessings to the mantra mourners repeat when family members die. It’s the same expression they used in March when Iranian missiles first reached the capital, but the tone now is different after more than a dozen people were killed and hundreds wounded in attacks on King Khalid International Airport.
Fear is breaking through. Social media and WhatsApp group chats have been filled with eulogies for Captain Hamoud Alkalthami, the Saudia Airlines pilot killed on Thursday, and for Saturday’s dead — eight of them foreign residents from countries including Bangladesh, Egypt, and Sudan. People are posting about and queuing to donate to blood banks. The crown prince himself did so last week, part of an annual campaign, and that image was used to spur urgently needed donations. The captain’s death in particular has become a symbol for many Saudis: The war now has a martyr, with a name and face that looks like theirs.
Manal’s view
Saudis broadly trust their government. When they wrap themselves in the flag, or share statements of solidarity after attacks (at least for those who use their real names), it’s genuine and reflects how people speak in private.
But there has been a shift. Some are talking about leaving, which a few months ago would have been seen as a betrayal. Most are still confident and say the kingdom has come through worse. What’s pretty universal is the desire for the disruption to be over and to get back to living.
While the conflict with Iran was clear — we have been told to be wary of the Islamic Republic from the time we understood what an enemy was — the confrontation with the Houthis is more complex. Riyadh has tried a mix of strikes and diplomacy for more than a decade, and the UN-brokered truce in 2022 held long enough for people to stop thinking about the issue. It’s clear now that it’s a forever war, and few people I speak to can describe what winning would look like.
Without public polls, it’s impossible to gauge exactly what the Saudis think. Speaking to more than 25 people this weekend showed a split. One camp wants the Houthis finished for good, whatever that may meanOthers worry about the toll on Yemenis, our poorer neighbors, who make up the kingdom’s largest foreign community and share ties of kinship and history with Saudis.
Over the past six months, those who lived through the 1991 Gulf War used it to explain why they weren’t worried. Those six weeks of Iraqi strikes had one Saudi business leader “more frightened of the uncertainty of the Scud than anything else.” Uncertainty is again, 35 years later, the greatest fear.
Notable
- The strikes sharply raise the risk of Saudi Arabia being drawn into a wider war, after a decade in which Riyadh worked to contain the Yemen conflict rather than escalate it, Bloomberg reported.
- Eulogies for the 12 killed in Saturday’s strike filled Saudi social media, among them a Flynas flight attendant killed on duty and a university student in her final year, Arab News reported.