State Department order covers US embassy in Riyadh and satellite consulates
The Saudi Civil Aviation Authority said on Wednesday evening that one Saudi resident had been killed in attacks on King Fahad international airport in Dammam, on the Gulf near Bahrain and Qatar. Eight people were injured, officials said, and the airport suffered some material damage. Global flight-tracking service Flightradar24 said flights had been diverted away from the airport.
Separately, falling debris from the successful interception of a drone targeting an oil facility in the country’s south-east killed two people and injured two more, the Saudi energy ministry said.
Neither the Dammam airport attack nor the oil-facility strike was immediately claimed by the Houthis, although airports and oil facilities had been a major target of the Houthis’ recent wave of missile and projectile strikes on Saudi Arabia.
The State Department said attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” by Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen were highlighted as the reason for the drawdown. Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said, “The safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority.” The order covered the US embassy in Riyadh and its satellite consulates, the department said.
NBC and AFP reported that families of US embassy personnel were also being withdrawn from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain. Pigott described the reports of additional withdrawals as “inaccurate” and said the State Department order covered departures of staff and their families from Saudi Arabia only.
The US embassy in Riyadh had been badly damaged at the start of the US war on Iran in late February and had operated with only a skeleton staff for months, although some diplomats had returned in recent weeks.
The US had previously ordered non-essential staff to leave the Gulf ahead of the start of its war against Iran in late February. NBC reported that the US military had been quietly scaling back its presence at bases across the Middle East in recent days. A US Central Command spokesperson told the outlet that service members are regularly moved to “optimize mission readiness.”
Saudi Arabia has faced a barrage of near-daily Houthi attacks over recent weeks, including a strike on Riyadh’s international airport that the Guardian described as the kingdom’s deadliest in years.
An AFP/Getty Images photograph showed smoke billowing near the city of Taiz on Wednesday during battles between Yemeni government fighters and Iran-backed Houthis. The Guardian’s report was produced with Reuters and the Agence France-Presse.
The State Department withdrawal came amid reports that Trump had been presented with plans for restarting strikes on Iran after the midterm elections. The New York Times reported that the Trump administration was developing plans to restart the war on Iran. It also reported that the US and Israel had developed plans for a “short but intensive operation,” after Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth traveled to Israel earlier in the week for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Last week, Trump said the US was looking to knock out Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, a site linked to the country’s nuclear program. Trump has publicly said he does not intend to restart the war before the 3 November elections.
The Dammam and oil-facility attacks came after the Houthis warned travelers and airlines to avoid Saudi airports following an attack on Riyadh’s main international airport, as MSI previously reported.