US orders Saudi mission staff families out amid Houthi attacks

The United States has ordered non-emergency government employees and their family members to leave its mission in Saudi Arabia after a series of attacks attributed to Iran-aligned Houthi forces, including strikes on civilian and energy infrastructure. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the departure order applied to non-emergency US government employees and their families in Saudi Arabia. He cited increasingly hostile Houthi activity against civilian airports and other critical infrastructure, with casualties and severe disruption to travel, according to Al Jazeera and the South China Morning Post.

The reports differ over the wider scope of the withdrawals. Pigott said a media report about departures from US embassies across the Gulf was inaccurate and publicly referred only to Saudi Arabia. However, four US officials told Reuters, as cited by both reports, that US missions in other Gulf states would also order family members to leave.

The move followed attacks in Saudi Arabia that killed at least one person and injured eight at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. Earlier, two people were killed when Saudi air defences intercepted a drone attempting to strike a facility at Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield, the Saudi energy ministry said, according to the South China Morning Post. The US embassy in Riyadh issued a security alert warning of possible further Houthi attacks.

The alert followed recent deadly strikes, including an attack on Riyadh’s airport, and came after drones hit the embassy and a CIA station hosted there in early March. The withdrawals come against the background of a wider regional conflict that began after a US-Israeli war with Iran, according to the supplied reports. Washington had returned some diplomatic personnel to the region in recent months after many were removed when Tehran launched attacks on US facilities following the conflict’s start in late February.

The latest escalation in Yemen has opened another front in the regional fighting, the reports said. The conflict has disrupted global energy trade and harmed Gulf economies, while the attacks on Saudi infrastructure have also affected civilian travel. NPR separately reported that Saudi Arabia had cancelled its “Davos in the Desert” investor meeting because of air strikes by Houthi forces.

The report also said Britain had offered military support, although it did not provide further operational details. The Houthis, described in the reports as supported by Iran, are based in Yemen and have increasingly targeted Saudi Arabia. The US State Department said protecting personnel and their families remained its highest priority and that it would continue taking measures to support their safety.

The public confirmation of a Saudi-specific order, alongside officials’ account of wider family departures, leaves the exact regional scale of the evacuation unclear.