Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris apologizes to Saudis over Riyadh airport attack

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris apologized on Monday for being slow to offer condolences over a deadly attack on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, after a Saudi writer accused him of ignoring the victims, and used his reply to call on Arab countries to unite against Iran.

The exchange played out on X. Saudi writer Wafaa Al-Rasheed tagged Sawiris in a post criticizing his silence on the attack, according to London-based news site Middle East Monitor, which published translations of both posts.

"He didn't utter a word about our dead in Riyadh… as if our blood isn't even worth a word of condolence!" Al-Rasheed wrote, according to the outlet's translation.

Sawiris, who comments often on regional politics on X, responded directly. "I apologise for the delay… May God have mercy on the innocent victims, including the Egyptian flight attendant," he wrote, according to Middle East Monitor. "We in Egypt stand with you heart and soul, and our love for the Saudi people is in all our hearts."

He also wished ruin on "the aggressor" and urged Arab countries to set aside their differences and confront what he called the "Iranian enemy," the outlet reported.

The attack

The strike on Saturday, Oct. 10, killed 12 people and injured more than 300 at Saudi Arabia's main international gateway, according to Saudi authorities cited by the Associated Press. The dead included four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshis and one person each from Egypt, the U.S., Jordan, Syria, Sudan and the Palestinian territories, the AP reported. A regional official told the AP that a missile hit the complex housing domestic terminals 3 and 4.

The AP called it the deadliest attack in any Gulf Arab country since the start of the war with Iran, which began on Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel struck Iran. Saudi authorities did not initially assign blame. Al Jazeera reported that the head of the Houthi media office in Yemen wrote on X that the Iran-backed group had "shut down Riyadh international airport." Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, called the strike a "full-fledged war crime" and said the coalition would "respond decisively," Al Jazeera reported.

It was at least the third Houthi attack on the airport in a week, according to Al Jazeera. Saudi Arabia has since extended the airport's shutdown without saying when flights will resume, Middle East Monitor reported on Tuesday, and several Arab airlines have suspended service to Riyadh.

A vocal critic of Tehran

Sawiris, 72, has criticized Tehran before. In a June interview with broadcaster Hadley Gamble, he argued that the war had rescued Iran's government rather than weakening it. "Iran was on the verge of collapse you know before the war," he said.

Sawiris made his fortune in telecommunications, building Orascom Telecom into one of the biggest mobile operators in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia before merging it into Russia's VimpelCom in 2011. He has since put much of his money into gold mining, asset management and real estate.

He is worth $5.6 billion, according to Forbes, which makes him one of Africa's richest people. His younger brother Nassef Sawiris, Egypt's richest person, controls stakes in fertilizer maker OCI and sportswear brand Adidas.