Attack on Dammam airport: US pulls diplomats out of Saudi Arabia
One dead and eight injured at King Fahd airport, two killed near the Shaybah oilfield. Washington orders non-essential embassy staff and their families to leave.
Archive image · Photo: Ashashyou / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
One person was killed and eight others injured in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in the eastern Saudi city of Dammam on Wednesday. The injuries ranged from minor to critical, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said; all of the wounded were taken to hospitals. The authorities did not say who was behind the attack. Earlier, air defences intercepted a drone aimed at a facility at the Shaybah oilfield, according to the energy ministry; falling debris killed two people there, a Filipino and a Nepali.
The US State Department ordered non-essential embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia. Spokesman Tommy Pigott wrote on X that the Iranian-supported Houthis had increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia and stressed that the order applies only to the kingdom. However, four US officials told Reuters that US missions in other Gulf states would also order family members to leave.
Saudi Arabia has faced near-daily attacks this month. Strikes on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh killed at least 13 people and injured more than 300, ABC News reported; the airport partially reopened with limited flights on Wednesday. A four-year truce in Yemen’s civil war collapsed in June.