By Rami Ayyub, Humeyra Pamuk and Timour Azhari
JERUSALEM/ISTANBUL/DUBAI, Oct 21 (Reuters) – The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and family members to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia and plans to withdraw family members from a number of other US missions in the region, US officials told Reuters.
The order came as attacks in Saudi Arabia killed at least one person and injured eight others at a civilian airport in Dammam and two people were killed in a drone attack on an oil field.
State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a post on X that the department ordered the departure of “non-emergency US government employees and their family members in Saudi Arabia only” amid attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen on civilian targets in the country.
Washington had returned some diplomatic personnel to the region in recent months after many were pulled out when Tehran launched attacks on US facilities after the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February.
“Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions,” Pigott said.
Four US officials told Reuters that US missions in other Gulf states would also be ordering family members to leave. Pigott did not address changes to other missions outside Saudi Arabia.
The latest withdrawals follow an escalation of the fighting in Yemen, opening another front in the regional conflict triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran. The wider conflict has snarled global energy trade and hurt Gulf economies.
After the departure order, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority reported an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam that killed one person and injured eight others. Earlier in the day, two people were killed after Saudi air defences intercepted a drone that was attempting to hit a facility at Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield, the energy ministry said.
The US embassy in Riyadh issued a security alert on Wednesday about possible further attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, after recent deadly strikes including on Riyadh’s airport.
The embassy and a CIA station hosted there came under attack by drones in early March, as Iran began launching attacks across the region.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub, Humeyra Pamuk and Timour Azhari; Additional reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Michelle Nichols, Don Durfee, Daniel Wallis and Sanjeev Miglani)
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