US Orders Nonessential Staff Out of Saudi Arabia Over Houthi Attacks
Washington told nonemergency staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia as Houthi strikes intensify and fears grow of renewed war with Iran.
The United States has ordered nonemergency government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, citing a growing wave of missile and drone attacks on the kingdom by Yemen’s Houthi movement. The move, announced Wednesday by the State Department, comes as tensions across the Gulf climb again and reports circulate that Washington and Israel are preparing for possible new strikes on Iran.
What happened
Tommy Pigott, a spokesperson for the US State Department, said in a social media post that the department had issued an “ordered departure” for nonemergency staff in Saudi Arabia. The order covers the US Embassy in Riyadh and US consulates in the kingdom. Pigott said the Iranian-supported Houthis, an armed group that controls much of northern Yemen including the capital, Sanaa, had “increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia,” including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure.
Pigott described as inaccurate an earlier media report that the United States was preparing to withdraw personnel from embassies across the Gulf, and Fox News reported that he stressed the order applied to Saudi Arabia only. However, Al Jazeera, citing Reuters, reported that four US officials said American missions in other Gulf states would also tell family members to leave. Some outlets have reported similar steps in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, but the State Department has not confirmed them.
The US Embassy in Riyadh separately issued a security alert on Wednesday warning that further Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia were possible, according to Al Jazeera.
The Houthi campaign against Saudi Arabia
The departure order follows weeks of escalating strikes. Fox News reported that airports in Riyadh, Jizan, Najran, Dammam and Abha have been targeted since Oct. 5, and that the deadliest barrage, on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 300. Those figures could not be independently verified, and other outlets have reported different and lower tolls for individual attacks. Citing the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit group that tracks political violence worldwide, Fox News said Houthi strikes and attempted strikes on Saudi Arabia more than doubled in a single week this month.
The fighting is tied to a renewed conflict inside Yemen between the Houthis and the country’s internationally recognized government, which Saudi Arabia backs. Al Jazeera described it as another front in the wider regional war that began when the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February.
Saudi Arabia has asked Washington for more missile interceptors. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that “every country in the world would like interceptors,” Fox News reported, describing them as among the most sought-after products in the defense field. Britain has said it will send Typhoon fighter jets to help protect Saudi cities and infrastructure, and the United States continues to provide intelligence and targeting support.
Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow at the London think tank Chatham House, told Fox News that the kingdom has “a huge geography to protect” and that the Houthis can impose heavy costs while spending relatively little.
Why it matters: fears of a wider war
The withdrawal comes against a backdrop of rising rhetoric between Washington and Tehran. NPR reported that the United States and Israel are preparing plans for a possible attack on Iran in early November, after the Nov. 3 US midterm elections, citing a person briefed on the planning. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States was no longer negotiating with Iran and that an outcome would come “fairly soon,” according to Al Jazeera. Trump had previously pledged not to strike Iran before the elections.
Iran has signaled it would respond forcefully. Hossein Mohebi, a spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of the country’s armed forces, said Iran’s military doctrine had shifted from defensive to “offensive and asymmetrical,” Al Jazeera reported. The IRGC warned that renewed US attacks could lead Tehran to strike bases used in US operations and even move against neighboring countries. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said any action against Iran would come at a cost, while adding that Tehran prefers diplomacy.
Negotiations remain stuck. Rubio said Washington would not support any deal that could lead to an Iranian nuclear weapon, while Iran insists its right to enrich uranium is protected under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Tehran has offered to restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carried about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas before the war, in exchange for an end to the US blockade of Iranian ports, sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets.
What comes next
Energy markets are already reacting. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose above $110 a barrel on Thursday, Al Jazeera reported. Several developments in the coming days could shape what happens next:
- Whether other US missions in the Gulf formally order departures, as Reuters’ sources indicated.
- Whether Trump approves direct US strikes on the Houthis, an option he has said he is weighing.
- The outcome of Israel’s election next Tuesday, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeated his pledge to topple Iran’s government, faces a tough contest.
- The US midterm elections on Nov. 3, after which, according to NPR’s source, strikes on Iran could follow.
Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank, told Al Jazeera that another round of war appeared to be approaching, though some analysts say US threats may also be part of a pressure strategy aimed at forcing concessions from Tehran.
