Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has reportedly gone into hiding as Houthi rebels intensify missile attacks on Riyadh.

The latest strike hit the capital’s international airport on Sunday, killing one person and leaving 11 others injured.

It came just a day after the deadliest attack on Saudi Arabia in a decade, when a projectile struck King Khalid International Airport, killing 13 people and injuring hundreds.

The sharp escalation in the conflict between the Saudi-led coalition government and Iran-backed Houthi fighters prompted Donald Trump to warn that the United States could intervene.

On Sunday, Trump said he “may” join a counterattack after Saudi Arabia vowed to retaliate against the rebels.

As Houthi missile strikes on Riyadh grow more frequent, the crown prince has reportedly been forced to seek shelter in secure locations.

Mohammed bin Salman, 41, has allegedly spent the past six days moving between heavily guarded palaces equipped with bunkers, officials said.

He was last seen in public on Tuesday, when he donated blood as part of a national campaign encouraging donations.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the 41-year-old crown prince was “shuttling between heavily guarded palaces equipped with bunkers” and protected by a handpicked security team, according to officials familiar with his movements.

Schools throughout the capital have also been closed, with lessons moved online as the Houthi attacks continue.

The developments came after President Trump suggested that Washington could take action against the Houthi rebels as he continues to wage war on Iran.

Last month, Trump described the crown prince as a “good friend.”

Asked about the growing momentum of Houthi fighters in Yemen, he said: “Everything is gonna work out fine and dandy. It’s gonna be very good.”

When reporters later asked whether the United States would become involved in the conflict, the president replied that he was “going to look at it.”

Sunday’s Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia triggered international condemnation, with the UK and European Union denouncing the strikes and reaffirming their support for the kingdom.

British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting called the Houthi missile strikes “contemptible” and warned that they represented a “dangerous escalation” of the conflict.

He told Sky News: ‘What we’ve seen overnight is a dangerous escalation and I’m afraid an increasing pattern of behaviour from the Houthis that’s targeting civilian sites in Saudi Arabia.

‘This is completely contemptible action and it’s one of the reasons why the UK is providing support to Saudi Arabia in the form of air defences, but also air-to-air refuelling.

‘We want to see an end to this conflict. It cannot be right that the Houthis are attacking civilian targets in this way.’

Meanwhile EU chief Ursula von der Leyen joined the chorus of condemnation as she too labelled the attacks a ‘dangerous escalation’ while calling on the Houthis to halt strikes on civilian targets.

She said: ‘These attacks by Iran’s proxies are pushing the region into a spiral of violence.

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‘They are destabilising crucial global transport and energy nodes with shockwaves sent through the world. These murderous attacks at civilians must stop at once.’

She added that the EU stands in ‘solidarity with Saudi Arabia’. 

The Houthis last night claimed responsibility for the attacks on King Khalid International Airport yesterday, which killed one person and injured 11 others. 

The group said it had targeted the location several times as well as Saudi energy facilities, a day after Saturday’s deadly attack.

Military spokesman Yahya Saree said the Iran-backed group ‘carried out four qualitative operations in the past 24 hours using ballistic and cruise missiles and drones’.

Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority condemned the ‘heinous attack’ – saying it resulted in ‘material damage’.

The authority said: ‘The attack resulted in the death of a Pakistani resident – may God have mercy on him – and the injury of 11 others.’

It came just hours after the rebel group warned that Saudi airports are ‘potential targets and sites for operations by our forces’.

Mr Saree urged ‘everyone to take our warnings seriously,’ adding that Saudi Arabia ‘bears responsibility’ for failing to intercept its missiles. 

On Saturday, 13 people were killed in a missile strike on the Riyadh airport while more than 300 were left injured. 

Four Saudi citizens were among the dead, including a captain with the national airline as well as two Bangladeshis, one US citizen, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian, one Sudanese and one Indian.

The strike hit a passenger terminal at King Khalid on Saturday.

It was the deadliest on the kingdom in over a decade, when an Islamic State suicide bomber killed 21 worshippers in a Shia mosque in the eastern Qatif governorate.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Saturday’s incident and shared that one unidentified American died.

He said: ‘The United States strongly condemns the recent attacks on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the terrorists Houthis, including today’s strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh that took numerous innocent lives, including an American citizen.’ 

Mr Rubio continued: ‘These reprehensible attacks demonstrate a blatant disregard for innocent civilian life. They must stop now. 

‘We stand with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its people and extend our condolences to the victims and their families.’

Saudi coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Malki described the strike as a ‘cowardly terrorist attack’ against a civilian facility. 

The civil war in Yemen flared back to life in July after a four-year, UN-brokered truce collapsed, months into a wider Middle East war that has rocked the region and roiled energy supplies and markets.

Saudi Arabia leads an international coalition that has supported Yemen’s government militarily since 2015 and is now being drawn deeper into its impoverished neighbour’s conflict.

Mr Trump has said he will speak with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, calling what happened in Saudi Arabia ‘not acceptable’.

He told reporters: ‘It’s not good… I’m not happy.’

US media outlets have reported that previous Saudi requests for US military assistance in dealing with the Houthis have been rebuffed.

If Mr Trump does decide to get involved, it would likely escalate the ongoing war between the US and Iran. 

The Daily Mail, Brian Viner

Rating:

Rating: Four stars

Brian Viner found that Digger improved on a second viewing, when the film’s twists were already known.

On his first encounter with it, however, he felt the film became caught up in its own elaborate concept and theatricality, making it confusing and overly self-indulgent.

Even so, Viner described Digger as bold and frequently brilliant filmmaking. He said Alejandro González Iñárritu, Tom Cruise and John Goodman had earned Oscar buzz, while praising supporting performances from Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller and Jesse Plemons — as well as the film’s animatronic cat.

BBC, Nicholas Barber

Rating:

Rating: Four stars

Nicholas Barber said he personally loved Digger, although he acknowledged that some of its excesses go too far and that many viewers will likely wish it were shorter.

He added that, after roughly 90 minutes, the repeated close-ups of John Goodman shouting — complete with bulging, snake-like veins on his forehead — begin to test the audience’s patience.

Yet Barber enjoyed the film’s grandest moments, particularly when Cruise moves around the set delivering forceful speeches about the oil industry. He praised the scale of Cruise’s performance, the script’s stark environmental argument and Iñárritu’s exuberant visual style.

The Telegraph, Robbie Collin

Rating:

Rating: Four stars

Robbie Collin wrote that Digger occupies a state of constant uncertainty. He was unsure whether the film’s internal argument about art’s inability to confront catastrophe is meant to be resolved — or whether the film even wants to settle the question.

Nevertheless, he found it thrilling to watch Iñárritu and Cruise explore that conflict with such visual beauty, ambition and extravagance.

The Los Angeles Times, Amy Nicholson

Amy Nicholson argued that, although Tom Cruise has previously dangled from cliffs, skyscrapers and aircraft, playing oil tycoon Digger Rockwell may be his most dangerous role in years.

Collider

‘Without special effects or stunts, the veteran star [Tom Cruise] holds your attention throughout, grandstanding in a way that feels like an Oscar moment both in its intention and its impact.’

The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw 

Rating:

Rating: Two stars 

‘As with Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, there may be a tacit consensus, understandable at some level, that at least we have a big mainstream movie which is talking about the biggest issue of our time, and we have a duty to suspend critical objection. 

‘Digger certainly resonates with Donald Trump’s greedy urge to despoil the Arctic and everywhere else. Yet there is something glib and overblown here. This film finds itself in a postmodern hole. And what do you do when you’re in a hole?’

The Times, Kevin Maher 

Rating:

Rating: One star 

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‘There surely exists an alternate movie universe where Digger is played by an actual ”older” actor, say Dustin Hoffman or Ben Kingsley, and in that universe that film is certainly more effective than this one. 

‘Cruise, instead, is in the unenviable position of being Digger’s sole selling point and its fatal flaw.’

Empire, Olly Richards

Rating:

Rating: Two stars 

‘Digger is a bumptious blowhard… Cruise emerges with a win, reminding us how riveting he can be as an actor, not just as a movie star. 

‘A role so oversized and absurd demands fearless commitment, which he certainly gives. The big swing is laudable. If only the film were more rewarding.’

Variety, Owen Gleiberman

‘I’m not sure that ‘Digger’ is going to connect, because it’s so full of itself — so top-heavy with importance. 

‘The movie cost north of $125 million to make, and that figure is not only too big to probably justify itself; it’s a testament to the arrogance of the filmmakers – to the assumption that we’ll turn out in droves for this ponderous absurdist lecture.’

The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney

‘I was reminded of colossal misfires like Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and David O. Russell’s Amsterdam, bloated movies by directors so drunk on their exalted reputations they forgot there was an audience to consider.’ 

The Boston Globe

Digger is a ‘turgid, unfunny, and borderline unwatchable 128 minute mess’. 

Den Of Geek

‘[Digger] forgets the statement must still work as anything more than a self-flagellating valediction from a movie star.’ 

The Wrap, William Bibianni

‘Digger is what happens when you give the week’s worst Saturday Night Live sketch an inexplicably large budget and delusions of grandeur.’

The New York Post, Johnny Oleksinski

‘The trouble with Iñárritu’s pretentious frame story (sorry to be so vague) is that it causes us to not take about 90% of the movie seriously and to zone out for long stretches. 

‘There are no stakes to be found and no laughs to be had. There’s certainly no point.’

The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey

Rating:

Rating: Two stars 

‘As much as Digger has been sold on the promise that Cruise here is a revelation, there’s no real inversion to speak of, merely a return to the kind of work he did (over two decades ago!) before his blockbuster action streak. 

‘Even his latex makeover seems reminiscent of his paunchy, balding Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder.’

Indiewire, David Ehrlic

‘The reason why Digger is a nobler and more rewarding failure than Birdman or Bardo is because it doesn’t have to pretend that Digger Rockwell is a real person. 

‘He’s a living cartoon who’s exempted from the human foundation that was missing from those earlier films, and — for all of this movie’s psych-outs and detours — that allows Iñárritu to address his existential crises with a greater directness and degree of relatability.’

Ukraine has accused Russia of attacking a power plant in Kyiv shortly after Donald Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” between the two countries.

In an unexpected social media post, the US president said both sides had agreed to the arrangement and issued a warning: “Do not break it!”

Volodymyr Zelensky said the agreement was “news for me”, but indicated that Ukraine would accept it if Moscow also agreed to the terms.

The Ukrainian president later accused Vladimir Putin of targeting energy facilities within hours of the ceasefire announcement.

In a post on X, Zelensky said he had briefed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about the “brutal Russian strikes that continue unabated”.

“Just before our conversation, the Russians struck a power plant in Kyiv with a ‘shahed’ drone, and many districts experienced power outages,” he said.

“Later, there were strikes on energy facilities in the Kharkiv region.”

“And all of this happened AFTER the President of the United States made his statement about an energy ceasefire,” he added.

Trump’s announcement came just days after he unveiled a deal to import nearly two million tonnes of Russian diesel over the coming months.

The president is facing pressure to bring down fuel prices as the US approaches next month’s midterm elections, which are expected to be extremely difficult for his Republican Party.

Moscow had not immediately commented on the proposed “energy ceasefire”.

Zelensky said Ukraine welcomed Trump’s announcement as “good news for everyone”, while accusing Moscow of continuing to attack energy infrastructure in Kyiv and Kharkiv.

“Unfortunately, Ukrainian skies have been infested with Russian ‘shaheds’ all day today,” he said in an evening address, referring to drones launched by Russia.

“There have been glide bomb strikes and strikes on our energy infrastructure too. A power plant in Kharkiv was attacked this evening.”

The Ukrainian presidential office said the attack on Kharkiv occurred after Trump’s ceasefire post.

Zelensky said Ukraine was “ready to refrain from striking Russian energy infrastructure” and expected Russia to show the same willingness.

Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians power, heat and running water during the war, hoping to wear down public resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion. 

Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as ‘weaponising winter’.

Zelensky said Ukraine has proposed many de-escalatory steps but Putin ‘had one answer to all of them – “nyet.” We do hope that he will finally say something different to America, Ukraine, and the entire world’.

He said Kyiv is maintaining contact with the US, and he thanked Americans for their support. 

He said on X that he had spoken about the development with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

In an interview broadcast earlier Sunday, Zelensky said Kyiv was ready to stop striking Russian refineries if Moscow halted attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, and he asked Trump to press the Kremlin to agree.

‘We are asking President Trump, (to) give them (a) signal, not (to) attack energy infrastructure of Ukraine,’ he told ABC’s ‘This Week’.

On September 14, Trump claimed on social media that both countries had agreed ‘not to hit’ each other’s energy infrastructure but offered no details on that proposal either. 

While Zelensky had said Ukraine was ready to comply if Russia did, nothing came of the proposal.

Trump said Saturday it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Zelensky has not done enough to end the war and blaming him for high diesel prices in the US.

Zelensky said in response to Trump’s comments that Ukraine could hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire.

‘Give us two months, 60 days off. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections,’ he said, adding that Ukraine would be ready to accept whatever choice its people made.

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‘With all respect to President Trump, it’s up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader,’ he said. 

Holding an election during the war would be unlawful and that Ukraine would need security guarantees to allow for safe voting, Zelensky added.

Ukraine has been under martial law since Putin launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and the Ukrainian Constitution bars elections while it remains in force. 

Beyond the legal barrier, a nationwide vote would be vulnerable to Russian attacks, and organising one is widely seen as logistically impossible, with roughly a fifth of the country held by Russia, millions of Ukrainians displaced abroad and soldiers on the front line. 

Zelensky’s term formally expired in May 2024, but the constitution allows him to remain in office until a new president is sworn in.

The exchange came as Kyiv pressed its campaign against Russian infrastructure, with a drone attack on Sunday shutting down a data centre in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, run by technology giant Yandex. 

It was the third strike on the company’s facilities in four days.

Russia and Ukraine have been waging a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line.

Trump, who on Friday struck a deal with Putin to buy diesel from Moscow in an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of US midterm elections, has been urging Zelensky for weeks to stop striking Russian energy infrastructure.

He has sought to blame record US diesel prices on Ukraine rather than the US-led war in Iran, which has driven up world energy prices. 

Ukrainian and European officials reacted to the diesel deal with dismay, saying it will help pay for Russia’s war effort.

Zelensky responded by describing the deal as a ‘gift to Putin’ that ‘played into Russia’s hands’ and would extend the war.

The Ukrainian drone attack on the Yandex data centre in Vladimir caused outages across the company’s services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities and in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia unable to order taxis or access banking services, according to Russian independent news outlet Astra.

‘Operations at the data centre have been completely halted. There were no injuries,’ said the Yandex Cloud Telegram channel, which updates service availability.

Moscow residents described disruption to everyday tasks. 

Pavel Belyavskiy, a driver for Yandex Taxi, said it was unclear whether orders were coming through at all, and that he had to cancel several rides after waiting a long time because he could not reach the passenger.

‘I’d press the “call” button to contact them, but nothing happens,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing I can do, so I’m just forced to cancel.’

Igor Mann said he tried to check on an order on the Yandex Market shopping platform but the page was unavailable, and connecting through a virtual private network did not help. 

‘Nothing worked,’ he said.

Another Muscovite, Eduard Malyavko, said the outages had a ‘direct impact’ and weren’t just about ‘convenience’.

He said they affected ‘healthcare, and everything else’.

On Thursday, a drone attack took a Yandex data centre offline in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow. 

The next day, Ukrainian drones hit the company’s major data centre in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, disabling part of the facility, Yandex said.

Yandex, often described as Russia’s Google, runs the country’s most popular search engine and a wide range of digital services, and is heavily involved in Russia’s artificial intelligence development.

Elsewhere, search and rescue operations ended in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after a Russian bombing on Saturday, according to Ivan Fedorov, former regional head and co-chair of the regional defense council.

Zelensky said 23 people were killed in the attack, including four children. 

More than 30 people were wounded, with eight still hospitalised.

A man was killed and two women wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Bryansk border region.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Britain supports calls for a ‘sustained energy ceasefire’.

‘Russia has intensified its strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure over the weekend,’ he wrote on X.

‘This is an attack on Ukrainian civilians, plunging them into cold and darkness. 

‘The UK strongly supports President Trump’s call today for a sustained energy ceasefire to start now.’

Australia’s anti-corruption commission has ended its investigation into allegations that Bruce Lehrmann took confidential government documents.

National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) officers raided the homes of Lehrmann and his former media adviser, John Macgowan, in June 2024. The searches followed claims that the pair had misappropriated classified material linked to French submarine contracts.

Investigators were seeking sensitive records concerning the submarine program, which has since been abandoned. Lehrmann was accused of taking the documents from his former employer, ex-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds, in 2019.

The search team included a detection dog, two uniformed NSW Police officers assigned to secure the property and an Australian Federal Police officer.

Lehrmann has consistently denied the allegation. He also launched civil proceedings against former NACC commissioner Paul Brereton and Labor’s federal Special Minister of State, Don Farrell, seeking to recover legal expenses incurred during the investigation.

Among the items seized was Lehrmann’s blue Moleskine diary. The NACC alleged that it contained some of the “most sensitive material ever held by the Australian government”.

The commission has now informed Lehrmann and Macgowan that the inquiry has been discontinued, notifying them of the decision on Monday.

“I am writing to inform you that the former Commissioner decided to take no further action concerning the investigation,” the NACC letter stated.

“This means that the investigation into that matter has now come to an end.”

The letter also confirmed that Lehrmann was no longer required to appear at a hearing under a summons issued on September 12, 2024.

In a statement, Lehrmann described the inquiry as a “colossal waste of taxpayer money” and said the NACC should be abolished.

“Over two years, the former commissioner used his powers to personally advance a conspiracy that I was a spy and a traitor to the nation, selling defence secrets to foreign countries,” he said.

“My close friend John Macgowan has also been deeply affected by this.”

“The NACC needs to be abolished and replaced with nothing.”

The allegations involving the French submarine contracts first emerged during Lehrmann’s 2022 rape trial in the ACT Supreme Court.

Lehrmann told the court that he had not raped his colleague Brittany Higgins inside the Parliament House office of their former boss, Linda Reynolds, in March 2019.

Both agree that they went back to Parliament House together in the early hours of the morning.

Higgins said he raped her. Lehrmann said he made notes on Question Time briefs about French submarine contracts and went home. 

The criminal case was eventually abandoned due to misconduct by a juror.

The contracts came up again during Lehrmann’s defamation trial against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson in 2023, when he told the Federal Court he was working on Question Time briefs rather than raping Higgins.

However, Justice Lee found that, on the balance of probabilities, Lehrmann did rape Higgins and dismissed the French submarine argument. 

‘Common sense suggests that it is obvious there was one dominant thought running through the mind of Mr Lehrmann as he was approaching Parliament House, and it was nothing to do with French submarine contracts,’ the judgement read.

That finding was upheld by the Full Federal Court and then by the High Court.

Lehrmann has always denied raping Higgins.

Daily Mail has contacted the NACC for comment.