Saudi Arabia just bombed Houthi targets and Pakistani troops are now in Riyadh

Saudi Arabia's coalition in Yemen says it just destroyed dozens of military targets.

All of them in Houthi-held territory. All overnight.

Major General Turki al-Maliki is the coalition's spokesman. He posted the news on X overnight, in a string of messages.

He said rocket and missile launch platforms were destroyed. The Houthis were using them to threaten the whole region, he said. And the coalition is going after the group's entire ballistic missile network next.

Al-Maliki also said the coalition is flying air support for Yemen's army. Around the clock. Every day.

So why now?

Two days ago, the Houthis killed three Saudi nationals. At Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport.

Two strikes did it. The first hit the airport buildings. The second one destroyed a parked Saudia Airbus A320 on the ground.

One of the three killed was the pilot of that plane. Captain Hamoud Ali Alkalthami. Several people of different nationalities were wounded too.

And this wasn't the first attack on a Saudi airport this month. Three to four days ago, strikes on Abha and Riyadh airports killed three civilians and injured 36 more, according to Saudi aviation authorities.

So the coalition has been building up to this.

Just a few days before this operation, it said it had destroyed dozens of Houthi targets, across Saada, Hodeidah, Jawf and Marib provinces. Now the count has gone up again.

And the coalition isn't doing this alone.

Yemeni government forces are fighting on the ground at the same time. Five days ago they launched what they're calling Operation Dawn of Yemen. The goal: take back territory the Houthis seized, including the capital, Sanaa.

Yemen's armed forces spokesperson, Brigadier General Majed Abdullah Al-Nadhib, says his forces carried out thousands of strikes on Houthi positions in just one day. He says well over a thousand Houthi fighters were neutralised. And hundreds of vehicles destroyed or damaged.