Saudi Arabia stopped issuing public warnings of imminent military attacks days before the series of strikes on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, and issued its first threat alerts since September 29 only on Monday, Reuters reported. Reuters put the toll from the four Riyadh attacks of the past week at at least 18 people killed and more than 300 wounded. The Saudi government has not said why no alerts were issued before the attacks, and neither the civil defence authority nor the government media office responded to Reuters' questions about it.
Why did the alerts stop?
No official explanation has been given. Two officials with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that an allied Western government had asked Saudi authorities why the alerts had stopped before last week's attacks, and was told the alerts were too disruptive and that many citizens had complained about being woken by them at night; Saudi officials did not respond to Reuters' request for comment on that account. Analysts and regional officials told Reuters the silence also reflected an effort to project calm and confidence while the kingdom pursues its military campaign in Yemen, and a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia said the approach had instead added to public unease.
The national early-warning system, run by the civil defence authority under the interior ministry, began sending threat alerts to mobile phones and social media accounts in May. Its last alert before last week's attacks was issued on September 29, for the southern province of Najran, according to the civil defence account's posts cited by Reuters. The authority continued issuing weather warnings in the meantime, and on Monday it also reminded residents not to share images or information about interceptions and impact sites under regulations issued in March.
How did the warning gap compare with neighbouring states?
Other Gulf states hit in the wider war have warned their publics more consistently: Qatar's interior ministry has sent phone alerts before nearly every attack, and Bahrain and Kuwait have repeatedly sounded sirens, Reuters reported. Western embassies in Riyadh issued their own internal missile and drone alerts to staff during the Saudi system's silence, compiled from Western intelligence and Saudi input — but even the embassies received no internal warning before Saturday's airport strike, the deadliest of the week, and Reuters could not determine why. Two Western officials told Reuters the capital has been attacked about a dozen times this month.
The cumulative toll of at least 18 killed is Reuters' figure for the past week's four attacks; it is stated here as Reuters reported it, and no second independent tally of the combined figure was available at publication time. The component tolls — three killed in the first airport strike, at least 13 in Saturday's strike and one in Sunday's — were reported by Saudi authorities through Reuters, CNN and AP in earlier coverage.
What is happening now?
Civil defence issued its first threat alerts since September 29 on Monday, warning of potential threats in Riyadh and southern cities; Reuters could not establish whether the resumption was a response to the airport attacks. The same day, the Saudi-led coalition said it had destroyed a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis toward Riyadh, after an earlier Saudi warning alert for a potential hostile threat in the capital, according to a separate Reuters dispatch. King Khalid International Airport remains closed until October 17, and an international energy congress went ahead in Riyadh on Monday, though the chief executives of several major oil companies withdrew, Reuters reported.
The open questions in Monday's reporting are why the public system went silent in the first place, and whether alerts that residents had complained about will now remain in place while incoming fire on the capital continues.
This is not financial advice. The combined casualty figure is Reuters' account, attributed in the text with its limitation stated.
