US orders diplomats' families out of Saudi Arabia as attack on Dammam airport kills one

The United States has ordered non-emergency government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, the clearest sign yet that Washington expects Houthi attacks on the kingdom to get worse. Within hours, an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam killed one person and injured eight others.

The State Department announced the move on Wednesday. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the department had “issued an ordered departure for non-emergency U.S. government employees and their family members in Saudi Arabia only”. He added: “Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia.”

An ordered departure is mandatory for the staff and relatives it covers. US embassies in Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have not been told to send people home, but several have cut staff under a “restricted operations” status the department introduced in August. A US official and a senior military official said the US military had also been quietly reducing its presence at posts across the Middle East because of threats from the Houthis and from Iran.

Dammam and Shaybah

Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said one resident was killed and eight people were injured in the attack on the Dammam airport, the main gateway to the oil-rich Eastern Province. It said the injuries ranged from minor to serious. It did not say what kind of weapon was used or who fired it.

On Tuesday, the energy ministry said air defences had stopped a drone aimed at the Shaybah oilfield, but falling debris killed two workers, a Filipino and a Nepali, and injured two more. The ministry did not say who launched the drone.

The attacks follow the strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on 10 October, which killed at least 12 people, among them an Indian national and an American, and injured more than 300. The Riyadh airport partly reopened on Wednesday for Saudia and flynas flights, but Lufthansa and Air France have cancelled flights there until mid-November.

Trump keeps options open

Asked whether the US would strike the Houthis, President Donald Trump said: “We may.” He added: “But what they did was very bad.”

Yemen’s government, which is fighting the Houthis alongside the Saudi-led coalition, wants more help. “We are fighting on behalf of everyone, because the threat and risk of the Houthis will expand,” said Marwan Ali Noman, political adviser to Yemen’s foreign minister. Britain has already sent Typhoon jets to help defend Saudi cities.

For India, the danger is close to home. The Indian Embassy in Riyadh has already told Indians in the kingdom to shelter indoors during alerts, stay away from windows and follow Saudi safety instructions. The emergency number is 911 in Riyadh, Makkah, Madinah and the Eastern Province, and 998 elsewhere.