Saudi Arabia's air defences just failed and its own capital is burning

A Houthi missile just got through Saudi Arabia's air defences.

It hit a fuel depot at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Early this morning. First time anyone's hit the Saudi capital's main airport in four years.

Reuters video shows black smoke and flames pouring out of the fuel storage area. An AFP journalist was right there. Watched firefighters putting out a burning fuel tank with the Aramco logo on it. Right next to the airport.

So that's what the cameras saw.

Here's what Saudi Arabia says happened. Nothing.

The Saudi-led coalition says its air defences caught the missile and destroyed it before it hit anything. Turki al-Maliki, the coalition's spokesperson, says the Houthis also went for Bisha, Taif, Farasan and Yanbu. He says all of those were stopped too. No one hurt, Saudi Arabia says. No damage.

But there's a fuel tank on fire on camera. And nobody's explained where that fire came from, if nothing was hit.

Yahya Saree is the Houthi military spokesperson. He says his group fired cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones at what he calls "sensitive" sites in Riyadh, plus an Aramco oil facility in Yanbu. The coalition says Yanbu was thwarted too. No damage there either, it says.

So you've got two governments describing two completely different nights. And only one of them has a burning fuel tank on camera.

Before the missile even hit, Saudi Civil Defence sent out overnight alerts. "Hostile aerial threat," they called it. Sent to people in Riyadh and Al-Kharj. First air-raid alert in the Saudi capital since this whole thing with the Houthis kicked off in July. An all-clear came eventually. Not right away.

And the airport is still feeling it. FlightRadar24 put King Khalid International on its highest disruption rating there is. 5.0. Major delays, cancellations. That's the same rating airports get when they're shut down by war.

This didn't come out of nowhere.

Earlier this month the Houthis took the whole of Yemen's Red Sea coast. The port of Mocha. Perim island. That gives them control of the Bab al-Mandeb strait — one of the busiest shipping routes on the planet.

Eleven days ago, Houthi attacks on four cities in southwest Saudi Arabia wounded 73 people and set oil facilities on fire. The coalition hit back with around 50 strikes. A few days before this missile, Saudi Arabia said the Houthis sent drones at Mecca. The Houthis denied it.

And the United Nations Security Council condemned the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia the day before this strike. Said they'd wounded civilians. Women and children among them.

Here's the other thing. Saudi Arabia's been asking for backup it isn't getting.

Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince, called Donald Trump twice last week. Asked for direct US strikes on the Houthis. Twice. Donald Trump said no both times.

So what's America doing instead? Sending intelligence. Helping find targets. Brad Cooper, the American admiral running US Central Command, has been in Saudi Arabia for coordination talks.

Yasmeen al-Eryani, from the Sana'a Center think tank, told Al Jazeera that it's the Houthis setting the pace here. Not Riyadh.

So what don't we know? Whether that fire came from the missile Saudi Arabia says it intercepted, or from something else entirely. Whether anyone was actually hurt. And whether Saudi Arabia is about to hit back hard, or sit this one out like it has before.

Right now, the smoke over Riyadh's airport is the only fact nobody is arguing about.