Saudi landmark closes offices, chopper pilots killed near Yemen

Management at Riyadh’s 99-storey Kingdom Centre skyscraper has mandated remote working for all office tenants until further notice. While no reason was officially given for the order, New Straits Times reports it follows repeated Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and comes a week after a major Houthi attack on Riyadh’s international airport killed 13 people. Tenants of the building include McKinsey, the International Monetary Fund, and Merril Lynch, though the mall at the base of the landmark remains open.

The remote working order follows the death of two helicopter pilots in a crash in the Najran region near the Yemen border. The Saudi-led coalition attributed the crash of the Ministry of National Guard AH-6i reconnaissance helicopter to a technical malfunction. However, Dawn reports that Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree claimed the group shot down an Apache helicopter in the same area.

The incident occurs as the decade-plus conflict between the Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-backed Houthis has intensified following a four-year truce. NDTV notes the conflict reignited in July and escalated last month when the group seized strategic territory along the Red Sea coast.

Brief written by urgent.news from Al-Monitor, New Straits Times, Malay Mail, Dawn, NDTV — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.