State Department ordered non-emergency embassy staff out of Saudi Arabia this week
US national intelligence director Jay Clayton warned in an unclassified memo that Iran has “substantially increased efforts to target US personnel” in the Middle East and other areas, the BBC reported. The memo, sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday, was marked unclassified. It said: “The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against US citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries.”
Clayton said he was making every effort to “downgrade as much intelligence as possible” so that Rubio could share it with US State Department personnel.
The warning came as the US State Department adjusted staffing at diplomatic posts in the region, including the ordered departure earlier this week of non-emergency US embassy staff from Saudi Arabia. That order responded to escalating attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis against Saudi Arabia in the past month.
A US official told the BBC: “When it comes to our staffing at embassies, we constantly evaluate new information about the security environment.” “The threat of Houthi attacks and of Iranian terror plots targeting US officials are informing our decisions on staffing adjustments for embassies on [Restricted Operations] Status in the region.”
Saudi authorities say at least 21 people have been killed in Houthi attacks on Saudi airports since the start of October. A missile strike on Riyadh’s international airport on 10 October killed 13 people and injured 308 others — the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.
The Houthis say the attacks on Saudi Arabia are retaliation for what they call a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in their territory, and for an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blame on the kingdom.
The conflict in Yemen began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa, and escalated in 2015 after a Saudi-led coalition intervened in an attempt to restore the government’s rule. A four-year-old informal ceasefire began to unravel in July, when the Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks. Some 155 civilians have been killed in Yemen since, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.
The Houthi escalation has unfolded against a wider US and Israeli conflict with Iran. The US and Israel launched an air campaign against Iran in February, killing its leader and prompting Tehran to retaliate with strikes on US allies across the region and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas usually travels.
In June, the US and Iran reached a preliminary agreement to end the war and reopen the strait, but it collapsed within weeks after Iranian attacks on shipping resumed and the US reinstated its blockade.
The situation in the Strait of Hormuz has seen oil prices surge, exacerbated by the Houthis’ “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia.
For US officials weighing which diplomatic posts keep non-emergency staff, Clayton’s assessment places the Iranian plotting claim alongside the Houthi attacks. The US official said both threats are informing decisions on embassy staffing in the region.