SCMP, 18 October, AFP: Kingdom Centre, 99 storeys, Riyadh, mandatory remote work from Sunday until further notice. The email does not give a reason. The mall at the base stays open. CNA, the same AFP piece: schools are already teaching at a distance. King Khalid airport is closed, after a Houthi attack last week. Thirteen dead, in AFP’s account. The tower is not “closed”. The offices are.

The email, seen by AFP: “remote working arrangements are mandatory for all office employees at Kingdom Centre, effective immediately and until further notice.” “Kindly refrain from attending the offices during this period.” Tenants, still AFP: Merrill Lynch, McKinsey, the IMF. The 2011 photograph is the tower. It is not Sunday’s lobby.

On the same day, the Saudi-led coalition said two pilots had been killed. Turki al-Malki, a major general, coalition spokesman, through SPA: an AH-6i reconnaissance helicopter of the National Guard crashed on Saudi territory, in Najran, near Yemen, from a “technical malfunction”. The crew, two officers. The coalition’s word is “martyrdom”. Ours is not. The Houthis, Yahya Saree, on Saturday evening: they had downed an Apache, a “Saudi enemy”, in the same area. The aircraft type is not the same in the two mouths. The cause is not a verdict.

AFP ties the tower order to repeated Houthi attacks. A week after the airport. The coalition, overnight: two drones intercepted near Riyadh, a third over the Eastern Province. Two ballistic missiles, in the south. Danger alerts, then lifted, Civil Defense said, in Türkiye Today’s account. The Houthis, on Saturday: Saudi strikes, 12 dead in Yemen, three of them children. The figure is theirs. It is not a hospital we opened.

The war with the Houthis, Iran-backed in AFP’s wording, has flared again. A four-year truce has broken. Last month the group took ground on the Red Sea coast, CNA says. Attacks on tankers, oil facilities, the airport. The coalition, air raids. That is the frame. It is not a map we draw.

MEE also puts al-Jawf, and Marib. Egypt, an emergency sitting of parliament on Sunday, Sisi: defence, not attack, if Riyadh asks. Our piece stops at the tower and the two officers. The mall, open. The offices, not. Until a new order.

Image: Wajahat Mahmood, Kingdom Centre, Riyadh, 9 September 2011, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The tower in 2011, not Sunday’s 2026 lobby.

Sources consulted: Saudi closes Riyadh skyscraper as chopper pilots killed near Yemen — South China Morning Post; Coalition: Reconnaissance Helicopter Crashes in Najran, Resulting in Martyrdom of Its Aircrew — Saudi Press Agency.