Watch: CCTV shows people take cover as missile hits Riyadh airport
I keep thinking about how ordinary that terminal must have looked seconds before impact. People checking departure boards, queuing for coffee, scrolling phones. Then a missile arrives and suddenly the most mundane space on Earth becomes a war zone. That's the part footage like this captures better than any news report ever could.
This matters because airports are choke points of civilian life. They're not military installations, yet they sit right in the path of regional power struggles. The fact that someone chose to strike one, or that one got caught in the crossfire, tells us something about how conflicts bleed into everyday spaces. I'd want to know the intended target, whether this was precision or chaos, and how many people were in that terminal when the cameras caught them diving for cover.
I don't have answers from this clip alone. But I do think the image of people taking shelter inside an airport terminal will stick with me longer than any official statement about the attack. That's the thing about CCTV footage, it doesn't spin, it just records. And sometimes the recording is more honest than the analysis.