The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia, as the Gulf kingdom faces a barrage of near-daily attacks, with at least three people killed at an airport and an oil field on Wednesday evening.
Attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have been highlighted as the reason for the withdrawal. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said, “The safety and security of department personnel and their families remains our highest priority. »
The State Department said the order covered its embassy in Riyadh and its satellite consulates. The embassy was badly damaged at the start of the US war against Iran and had been operating for months with minimal staff, although some diplomats had returned in recent weeks.
The announcement comes as some media outlets – including NBC and AFP – reported that families of US embassy staff were also being pulled out of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, while the New York Times said the Trump administration was developing plans to restart the war against Iran.
However, in his statement Wednesday, Pigott called reports of further withdrawals “inaccurate” and stressed that the State Department’s order only related to the departure of personnel and their families from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has faced a succession of deadly attacks by the Houthis in recent weeks, including a strike on Riyadh’s international airport that was the kingdom’s deadliest in years, as the war with the group intensifies.
On Wednesday evening, the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority announced that a Saudi resident had been killed in attacks on King Fahad International Airport in Dammam in the Gulf, close to Bahrain and Qatar.
Eight people were injured and the airport also suffered material damage, according to authorities. Global flight tracking service Flightradar24 said flights had been diverted from the airport.
Separately, falling debris from the successful interception of a drone targeting an oil facility in the southeast of the country also killed two people and injured two others, the Saudi Energy Ministry said.
None of the attacks were immediately claimed by the Houthis, but airports and oil installations have been a major target of the militant group during its recent wave of missile and projectile strikes against Saudi Arabia.
The United States had previously ordered non-essential personnel to leave the Gulf before its war with Iran began in late February. NBC reported that the US military had quietly reduced its presence at bases in the Middle East in recent days, but a spokesperson for US Central Command told the US media outlet that troops were regularly moved to “optimize mission readiness”.
The withdrawal of personnel from the region comes amid reports that Trump has received plans to resume strikes against Iran after the midterm elections.
The New York Times reported that the United States and Israel had developed plans for a “short but intensive operation,” after Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth visited Israel earlier this week to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Last week, Trump said the United States was seeking to destroy Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, a site linked to the country’s nuclear program, but the president has publicly said he has no plans to restart the war before the Nov. 3 election.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
Gn world
