Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is being shuttled between heavily guarded palaces equipped with bunkers amid escalating Houthi attacks, according to reports.
Saudi Arabia faced its worst attack in a decade on Saturday after 13 were killed and at least 300 injured in an attack on Riyadh’s international airport.
President Donald Trump has said that he is considering joining Saudi strikes on the Houthis while Riyadh’s Mecca Pact allies have also voiced their support.
Prince Salman, 41, has not been seen in public since Tuesday when he made an appearance to give blood to support a national donation drive.
Since then, he has been shuttled between heavily guarded palaces that are equipped with bunkers, according to the Wall Street Journal citing officials families with his movements.
He is also guarded by a handpicked security team amid the escalating security threats and with fighting heating up between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi rebel group.
The Independent has contacted the Saudi foreign ministry for comment.
A spokesperson for the Houthis doubled down on the airport attacks and said reiterated its intention to attack Saudi airports.
The King Khalid International Airport – struck four times in the past five days has been closed since the weekend missile attack.
Around 60 per cent of scheduled flights at the Riyadh airport are expected to be cancelled on Monday, data from aviation analytics firm Cirium showed.
Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that the kingdom’s response would be “equally serious” considering the gravity of the attacks.
Officials have also said that they are running low on interceptors needed to defend themselves from further strikes.
The kingdom has asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt to deploy air defence support to the region, officials told The Associated Press last month, with one noting that the US has seen its own stock dwindle during the Iran war.
A bitter civil war has raged between the two sides with a fragile ceasefire agreed in 2022. The agreement broke down in July this year against the backdrop of the US-Israeli war on Iran. The Houthis resumed attacks after accusing the Saudis of firing on the Sanaa airport as a plane from Iran was trying to land.
The Houthis, backed by Iran, are one of its most heavily armed supporters in the region. Iran’s military spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said that Tehran was “deeply concerned about developments in the Arabian Peninsula” and added that fighting “will only benefit the Israeli regime”.
It was reported that both Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers spoke late on Sunday about the escalation in fighting.
Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that he had warned against insisting on a military approach and ignoring the political situation and said that Tehran would help start a dialogue between both the Saudis and the Houthis.
The Saudis and Houthis began fighting in 2015, when the kingdom entered Yemen’s civil war on behalf of the government.
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