U.S. Withdraws Diplomatic Personnel from Saudi Arabia as Houthis Attack More Airports

( Breitbart )

The U.S. State Department has ordered some diplomatic staff and their family members to leave missions in Saudi Arabia due to ongoing attacks from the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen.

Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Aramco, also reportedly evacuated staff from its headquarters in the city of Dhahran due to Houthi attacks.

The Houthis launched an attack on King Fahd International Airport in the city of Dammam on Wednesday night, killing two people and injuring eight others – the latest in a series of Houthi drone and missile strikes on Saudi civilian airports.

Dammam is about ten miles away from Aramco headquarters in the city of Dhahran. The Houthis seriously damaged the Aramco building with a missile attack last week. The building remained functional and some staffers stayed at their posts, although “nonessential” employees were immediately told to work from home.

On Thursday, Aramco sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that all remaining employees at the Aramco building in Dhahran have been told to work from home until further notice.

“There was an evacuation order issued for these staff; no specific reason was given,” one of the sources said.

AFP noted that the “sprawling complex” around the Aramco HQ includes residential areas, and none of those areas has been shuttered or evacuated yet. AFP’s sources spoke about the Aramco evacuation order just hours after the Houthi attack on Dammam.

Also on Thursday, Saudi military officials reported intercepting four Houthi drones in the vicinity of the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The Houthis faced considerable outrage – but, so far, no concrete action – from the Muslim world after threatening Mecca with a drone in September.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott on Wednesday confirmed the mandatory departure order for “non-emergency U.S. government employees and their family members” from Saudi Arabia, but denied reports that staff in other Middle Eastern countries have also been told to evacuate ahead of potential large-scale hostilities.

“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.

Chatham House research fellow Farea al-Muslimi told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the Saudis are having great difficulty waging a purely defensive war against Houthi terror attacks, because the kingdom has so much territory to defend, sprinkled with so many vulnerable civilian targets.

“Saudi Arabia is a huge geography to protect, and this speaks to a larger threat we’re facing globally: a relatively small nonstate actor can pose a serious challenge to even a sophisticated and extremely expensive military. The Houthis can impose enormous costs without having to spend very much themselves,” he said.

The Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia are having a significant effect on the markets. Aramco stock slid by 0.7 percent on Thursday, the Saudi National Bank lost 5.1 percent, and the Saudi benchmark stock index was down by 2.3 percent – its biggest lost in over two years, and part of the eighth largest weekly decline in the market’s history.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) suffered from the instability as well, with the main market indexes in Dubai and Abu Dhabi posting losses of 0.7 percent each.