{"id":3088,"date":"2026-10-22T09:03:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T04:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3088"},"modified":"2026-10-22T09:03:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T04:03:50","slug":"us-orders-diplomats-to-depart-saudi-arabia-amid-houthi-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3088","title":{"rendered":"US orders diplomats to depart Saudi Arabia amid Houthi strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and family members to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia and plans to withdraw family members from a number of other US \u200bmissions in the region, US officials told Reuters.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The order came as attacks in Saudi Arabia killed \u200bat least one person and injured eight others at a civilian airport in Dammam \u2060, and two people were killed in a drone attack on an oil field.<\/p>\n<p>State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said \u200bin a post on X that the department ordered the departure of \u201cnon-emergency US government employees and their family \u200bmembers in Saudi Arabia only\u201d amid <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/how-are-yemens-houthis-attacking-saudi-arabia-so-effectively-2026-10-15\/\">attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthis<\/a> in Yemen on civilian targets in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Washington had returned some diplomatic personnel to the region in recent months after many were pulled out when Tehran launched attacks on US facilities \u200bafter the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against \u200bSaudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions,\u201d Pigott \u200csaid.<\/p>\n<p>Four \u2060US officials told Reuters that US missions in other Gulf states would also be ordering family members to leave.<\/p>\n<p>Pigott did not address changes to other missions outside Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>The US embassy in Riyadh issued a security alert on Wednesday about possible further attacks by the Houthis on Saudi \u2060Arabia, after \u200brecent deadly strikes including <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/yemens-houthis-renew-warning-over-saudi-airports-after-deadly-riyadh-attack-2026-10-11\/\">on Riyadh\u2019s airport<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The embassy and a CIA station \u200bhosted there <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/cia-station-saudi-arabia-struck-by-suspected-iranian-drone-source-says-2026-03-03\/\">came under attack<\/a> by drones in early March, as Iran began launching <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/investigates\/special-report\/iran-crisis-infrastructure-attacks\/\">attacks<\/a> across the region.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and family members to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia and plans to withdraw family members from a number of other US \u200bmissions in the region, US officials told Reuters. The order came as attacks in Saudi Arabia killed \u200bat least one person and injured eight others at a civilian airport in Dammam \u2060, and two people were killed in a drone attack on an oil field. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said \u200bin a post on X that the department&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}