We're leaving our Saudi dream behind. The drones and missiles are too much The Times Jim Armitage in Riyadh We're leaving our Saudi dream behind. The drones and missiles are too much new Houthi attacks are casting doubt on the country's ambitious reinvention and on the unspoken deal in which freedoms are given up in return for security ILLUSTRATION BY TONY BELL Jim Armitage in Riyadh Saturday October 17 2026, 4.25pm BST , The Sunday Times Listen 0:00 / · 10:35 min Share Share this article Email Twitter Facebook Link Save I n their apartment in a middle-class Riyadh compound, “Omar” is packing his family's bags. After the Houthi rebels' lethal attacks on the international airport a week ago, the Saudi marketing executive has decided to take them to their second home in England to wait it out. “It's deeply unsettling,” he told me by phone on Wednesday. “Every 12 hours or so we get new warnings followed by the booms of missiles and drones being intercepted overhead.” Most commented 1 Ukraine has evidence Starlink systems deliberately slowed, says Zelensky Russia-Ukraine war 946 comments 2 Katie Zacharia departs as Trump's press secretary after less than a week US politics 684 comments 3 Hundreds of British troops to rehearse Ukraine mission Politics 297 comments 4 Scotland plane crash: boy, 16, and man, 80, killed Scotland 44 comments 5 All Blacks leave Australia chasing shadows in dazzling first half Rugby union 22 comments When the missile alarms sound on their mobile phones, he, his wife and their daughter hurry to their refuge area — a windowless basement bathroom — until the all-clear. “My kid's only 11,” he added. “She hears the booms and she's really frightened, of course.” They plan to drive the five hours to Bahrain to catch a flight to London. Smoke and flames rise from King Khalid airport after a Houthi strike on October 8 Reuters It is not the first time Saudi civilians have been under Houthi fire , Omar said, but this time the rebels seem more dangerous. “They attacked us in 2020 and 2021. But now they've learned to strike in waves to get through the missile protection systems. It's a big difference.” Top stories 1 US inflation hotter than expected as Iran war stokes fuel costs Economics I first met Omar when I visited Riyadh in February. Back then, shortly before America and Israel's war on Iran, I found a confident metropolis full of hope, revelling in new, western-style freedoms. Saudis were proud of their sleek, new shopping malls and cafés. They partied until 3am to house music at trendy nightclubs. The first speakeasy selling alcohol to expats had just opened. Advertisement They knew that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's wildly ambitious “Vision 2030” project to build football stadiums, ski resorts and a 170km-long glass city in the desert was facing big scale-backs, but other developments were charging ahead. In the new “giga-project” city of Qiddiya, residents talked of their adoration for “MBS” and the liberalising reforms he has introduced since his father King Salman bin Abdulaziz came to power in 2015. There was an overwhelming feeling of optimism. Neom, Saudi Arabia's planned megacity, has been beset with difficulties NEOM/AFP via Getty Images) Speaking to several of those contacts last week, after Houthi rebels killed 13 civilians and injured more than 300 in their airport strike, the change in mood was stark. Some who had previously talked freely seemed guarded. Even the extroverted Omar insisted I must not use his real name after the authorities warned against unauthorised communications. Top stories 1 Theo Paphitis: I bought a ￡100m business for ￡1 and two packs of Benson & Hedges Family Finances 2 Premium Bonds are fun – until you realise what they are costing you Saving & Investing 3 Will Lyons: my vintage wine tour of South Australia Inspiration Many (but not all) office staff and schoolchildren were working from home, they said. Riyadh's hideously logjammed streets were quieter than normal. Omar's local Starbucks bustled with people supping matchas and lattes, but residents were jittery. On Friday, the Foreign Office issued an advisory warning against all but essential travel to Saudi Arabia, and all travel to within 10km of the border with Yemen. Neil Quilliam, a Middle East and North Africa specialist at the London think tank Chatham House, said the airport incursion felt like a watershed. “It has shown just how vulnerable Saudi is. The Houthis seem to be able to strike with pinpoint accuracy at will.” Advertisement Quilliam said his Saudi friends were unnerved. There was, he explained, a “social contract” in the kingdom: in return for sacrificing democratic freedoms, the state guarantees a good lifestyle and security. “But this clearly demonstrates that a non-state actor in a neighbouring country can target key pieces of infrastructure. What kind of security is that?” Sir John Jenkins, a senior fellow at the think tank Policy Exchange and a former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the Houthi attacks cast doubt on the whole MBS modernisation project. “The Saudis are caught,” he said. “For Vision 2030 to work, the absolutely fundamental concept was that you had to have a region without conflict. The kingdom needs regional peace for economic reform to succeed.” One of the key points of Vision 2030 was to diversify the economy from oil. Giga-projects were designed to boost sport, education, tourism and technology, attracting foreign investment and creating new private-sector jobs. Now, faced with a need to increase spending on defence, and inbound missiles hammering its nascent tourism income, oil revenues are more important than ever. Saudi Arabia's plans for the 2034 Fifa World Cup may be scaled back In recent days reports claimed the kingdom was to drop five of the eight football stadiums planned for its hosting of the 2034 Fifa World Cup . Its LIV golf championship has collapsed into bankruptcy proceedings after burning through $5bn and its domestic football clubs are drowning in debt. The impact of the Houthi strikes on international business here is already marked. While local delegates attended an energy conference in Riyadh last week, most overseas guests cancelled. Even Saudis struggled because of the closure of airports. One woman on a discussion panel described driving 13 hours from the port city of Yanbu to get there. Advertisement The property and entrepreneur events Mipim Middle East and Misk Global Forum have been cancelled. Doubts surround the highest-profile event on the annual calendar, the Future Investment Initiative — known as “Davos in the desert” — which is due to begin on October 26. Officially, it is still going ahead as a “hybrid” summit, allowing virtual attendance, but the turnout is expected to be low. That said, some heavy-hitting chief executives, including JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, still plan to attend. One multinational travel industry chief executive with substantial assets in the country expressed confidence that international visitors would return relatively soon. “I give it three to six months,” he said, “depending on how MBS handles it.” Quite how the 41-year-old crown prince will respond is hard to gauge. He has not made a public appearance since the attacks and is reportedly moving between heavily guarded palaces. Western analysts say eventually Saudi Arabia must negotiate a truce with the Houthis, having repeatedly failed to beat them militarily. However, Saudi anger at the airport atrocity means MBS must be seen to strike back forcefully. Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator familiar with the thinking in the leadership in Riyadh, predicted MBS would make a strong initial military response before any peace talks. “It is a question of inflicting enough punishment on [the Houthis] to make them listen,” he said. “They need to get a certain amount of punishment before anybody can talk to them. Advertisement “The Houthis have been fighting for two decades now. They are a formidable opponent. But everybody has a pain threshold.” Shihabi added that Saudi Arabia was economically far more powerful, with the ability to form strong political alliances such as its recent Mecca defence alliance with Turkey and Pakistan. It also has the power to blockade Houthi supply chains, he said: “It could be one month, three months, or a year, but Saudi Arabia has more staying power than the Houthis.” Few have more experience of the Houthis' ability to fight and negotiate their way into power than the Yemeni analyst Baraa Shiban, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi). He negotiated Yemen's new constitution with the Houthis before they ousted the internationally recognised government in 2014, triggering a bloody civil war that still rages today. War and peace newsletter Tom Newton-Dunn's concise guide to global conflict – with reasons for optimism. Sign up with one click You've successfully signed up to the War and peace newsletter Explore our newsletters An error occurred. Please use the link below. War and peace newsletter Explore our newsletters Now exiled in Europe with his family, he said Riyadh — which has long supported the increasingly embattled Yemeni government militarily — had “no good options”. The Houthis' tails were up, he said, having made sweeping territorial gains. Last month they seized territory in the west of the country by the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a natural chokepoint for oil and other shipments to and from the Red Sea on Saudi's western flank. That raises the prospect that by learning from their Iranian allies in the Strait of Hormuz they could begin “taxing” the crucial trade route — demanding payment from shipowners for safe passage. Advertisement “The Houthis are in a position now where they think they might win this war,” Shiban said. “They are not going to stop attacking Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has no option other than trying to support the Yemeni forces on the ground so they can start making some gains. If not, there is no reason for the Houthis to negotiate with them.” Jenkins is pessimistic about Saudi Arabia's chances of defeating the Houthis militarily. “[The Saudis] have a lot of expensive high-end kit, but they've proved themselves for years in Yemen not to be an effective fighting force. The Houthis, on the other hand, are extremely effective, with fighting experience going back 20 years, and are ideologically committed. They have a unified command structure through the Houthi family and they know the terrain.” President Trump with Mohammed bin Salman Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters Furthermore, it is far from clear how the Saudis' biggest ally — America — will assist. Shiban suspects that Riyadh will have to wait until after the US midterm elections next month before President Trump decides his course of action. Many Saudis are big Trump supporters but with America now self-sufficient in oil and US voters weary with “forever wars”, the fear is that he will not intervene. One Riyadh expat working on one of the city's giga-projects believes the doom and gloom is overdone. He notes that everyone in his office is working in person rather than remotely, and that most schools and workplaces are operating normally. “Until last week, 99 per cent of the time you'd have had no idea there was any conflict whatsoever in the region,” he said. “The Houthis are trying to damage people's confidence, but Saudis are resilient. They're proud, stubborn to the extent of arrogance. For them, it's business as usual.” For Omar, however, preparing for the long drive to Bahrain airport for his flight to London, the grand visions of giga-projects and sporting triumphs are — for now, at least — overshadowed by immediate security concerns. As families like his wait out missile alerts in windowless basements, the underlying premise of Vision 2030 — a stable, conflict-free environment in which to build the future — is facing its most severe test yet. 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