Saudi Airport - attack or terror?

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw33x4y8k82

Again I think the BBC should go for terrorist attack here as an airport is civilian. A military airport would be an attack but targeting civilian infrastructure with the intent to kill indiscriminately is just terror.

CNN also do not call it a terror attack.

Attack on Saudi airport leaves at least 12 dead, 309 wounded | CNN

How about you post a link to a news outlet that YOU think is reporting it correctly.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JRFAJAbqcHY

Saudis are calling it a terrorist attack which it pretty much was.....

Not acceptable, according to Donny:

US President Donald Trump said he planned to speak with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“What happened in Saudi Arabia is not acceptable,” he told reporters on Saturday evening on his return to Washington from a political rally. Earlier in the day, Mr Trump said the US may consider whether to join the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi rebels.

I am not commenting on Saudi conduct but boring that the media are now cheering away from the word terrorist generally. The attempting to crash the Tel Aviv flight into buildings was not described as a terrorist attack by much of the British media including the BBC. There are wars sadly in the region but I still think there is a need to call terror out.

I wonder if it is because there is violence both ways in a lot of cases

It is both an attack and a war crime. The Houthis are now the official government of Yemen, so they never call an attack by a state on another state which causes terror a “terrorist attack”. The same attack by a nonstate would be labelled a “terrorist attack.” As it is, its an attack and a war crime because it was on a civilian target.

the media are now cheering away from the word terrorist generally. The attempting to crash the Tel Aviv flight into buildings was not described as a terrorist attack by much of the British media including the BBC

I don’t think that is true that the media are veering away from it, they are being careful to await evidence. They have not called the FlyDubai attempted mass murder a terrorist attack because they needed to establish the copilots political motive for the crimes he did and whether he acted alone. He currently says he was a lone wolf who acted alone for the notoriety of it. Investigators so far have only found evidence of violent misognyist views.

A attack that deliberately targets civilians is a crime even if it’s in direct response to an earlier attack on civilians.

It's not a surprise that you won't comment on the conduct of the Saudis.
We have no idea whether the FlightDubai incident was a terror attack, or, as seems more likely, a false flag in the run up to the Israeli elections.
As I said, you can always complain if you don't like the BBC reporting. I wonder if they described the Saudi attack on the Yemen airport as a terror attack. We wouldn't want to introduce bias, after all.

Who is attacking civilians?

An airport was attacked. And sure, one could say an attack on civilian infrastructure is a war crime. And this airport had civilians in it. If they wanted to attack civilians then would an event of some sort not be the target?

Don't folk use the term collateral damage any more ?

And no, I am not supporting the Houthi. I am just saying that terminology is important.

It is a civilian airport that was attacked while open. The strike hit gate 401 while hundreds of civilians were waiting for their civilian flight. It did not hit the runway, it did not hit an empty plane, it did not hit the air control tower, it did not hit a hangar. The strike fits the definition of targeting civilians.

Targeting a large civilian event is not the threshold for targeting civilians, if it were then the only civilians targeted by Hamas were those at the Nova festival and every other civilian killed in their own homes or others’ homes are ‘collateral damage’ by your ridiculous logic.

I agree, terminology is important, and “collateral damage” doesn’t mean attacking civilian targets and “accidentally” killing the civilians inside them.

It means attacking a MILITARY target, and accidentally killing civilians because there was no reasonable way to attack that MILITARY target without risking the lives of civilians.

Unless the airport attacked was a military one (I don’t believe it was, it was the normal international one) then the term collateral damage doesnt apply and it was an attack on civilians. That’s the very definition of terror.

The IRA didn't generally target civilians, but instead, went for targets that they defined as legitimate, including economic targets - so would you say they weren’t terrorists? At least they gave warnings to evacuate civilians which the Houthis don’t do.

Why is my logic ridiculous ?

Because if we apply what appears to be your logic, then any military attack on any location where there are known to be civilians is a crime. And that is a hell of a can of worms to open.

And when you say, quote " It did not hit the runway, it did not hit an empty plane, it did not hit the air control tower, it did not hit a hangar. ", do you know for sure it was the gate that was targeted ? Are you positive it was not a hanger that was targeted, and the missile missed? These things are only about 500m accurate (as I recall).

It is a civilian airport that was attacked while open

Open to update but as I recall it unlike some airports in that part of the world there's no military ramp or area, it's a civilian facility only, though there might be occasional military traffic.

Even if there was a military area embedded within I don't think the Houthi's have any long range ordnance with the accuracy (the CEP if you want to be posh) to guarantee hitting it...

So it does look like this is a case of ordnance being deliberately lobbed in the general direction of a civil facility, not a case of poor/outdated intelligence, or "Ooops, we missed what we were aiming at by a little bit".

Have no opinion on what it's called.

If you had a lost a loved one, I doubt the words used would matter.

Fine, so it is a possible war crime because it targeted civilian infrastructure. And I said that in my post.

I did not mention how "terrorist" is defined in my post.

Yes. Any attack on any civilian infrastructure while it is known to be full of civilians is a potential war crime. As it is with this strike, there is no possible military objective or target anywhere near the strike. Collateral damage only applies if you kill some civilians that happen to be too close to a military target.

International law designates what are civilian targets and what are military targets. It clearly describes exceptions and war crimes. It does not matter what the IRA thought were legitimate targets, theoretically no one gets to have their own rules.

Whether or not an attack is a terrorist attack depends on the objective/intent of the attack and who is doing the attack. We have never categorised attacks that terrorise civilians as a terrorist attack when it is a state doing the attack. The Russian and Israeli strikes on hospitals- not terrorist strikes but probable war crimes. The Houthis are no longer Yemeni rebels & terrorists, they are the Yemeni government. Just like the Taliban are the Afghani government. Anything they do can no longer be considered a terrorist attack.

The reason 10/7 was a terrorist attack by Hamas is because Gaza was never its own sovereign state. It has been under Israeli military occupation and governance since 1967.

To me it is still at the " we don't know all the facts" stage.

It could possibly be like the Iranian strike against a Gulf civilian airport. I can't remember the name sorry. But that was a drone attack so was accurate. And it took a week or so to come out that it was actually a CIA/ US military supply depot at the airport that was hit. And that came out because there was US military killed.

The accuracy of the Houthi Missiles can be estimated from their strikes against Israel, I think. I recall 500 meters is claimed. But when the Houthi appeared to target an Israeli military airfield, it missed by about 1.2 Km. And we can say with certainty that it was the airfield they were attacking, because there was nothing else there. Although it's war of course, so where it hit might be more of a claim than a fact. Secrets and all that.

. I recall 500 meters is claimed. But when the Houthi appeared to target an Israeli military airfield, it missed by about 1.2 Km

FWIW and maybe for context that's no suprise and it's down to that CEP - Central Error Probable..I mentioned..

The media say "accuracy of" a lot but it's a bit meaningless without caveats - the weapons folks talk about accuracy in terms of within what radius of the aim point will 95% of the rounds fall.

If a Houthi missile has a CEP of 500m (which is poor) that's the radius of the circle within which 95% will land...doesn't mean one of the 5% can't fall 1.2.km out.

Fundmentally airports are easy targets - the lat/longs of individual gates are often on line...but even if you program a basic missile to a fraction of minute of lat/long if it's CEP is 500m the reality is you are using it as an area weapon.

The Houthis have been targeting infrastructure in Saudi following an attack by the Saudis, which has restarted the war that the Saudis waged on Yemen for around 8 years, resulting in the deaths of up to a million Yemeni civilians. Given the history, it is hardly surprising that there is a lot of ill will on the part of the Yemenis. I don't condone any violence but context is vital here and the Saudis only have themselves to blame for initiated violence repeatedly.

Agreed. The Wahabi Saudi's FAFO.

They started this new round of war by attacking Sanaa Airport first. Lets not forget that. A Houthi response was inevitable.

For info see my previous upthread about some airports in the region (and TBF around the world) having a military side.

I think Sanaa Airport might be one such.

So do you think that state terrorism doesn’t exist then? A lot of people would disagree.

But anyway, the Houthis are not the internationally recognised government of Yemen. They only control about 1/3 of the country. We’re back to the point I mentioned earlier which is what is the definition of a state.

Hamas were (are) the only recognised government of Gaza - unlike the Houthis in Yemen - but Gaza doesn’t fit the definition of a state so that is why, by your definition of a terrorist action as only being carried out by a terror group, the Oct 7th attack is a terrorist attack. But not because Hamas wasn’t the government of Gaza - they were. They were even elected democratically, albeit 2 decades ago. But because Gaza isn’t a state. Even though a lot of people and some governments want to pretend it is.