United States Pulls Non-Essential Diplomats Out of Saudi Arabia Amid Intensifying Houthi Attacks

Key facts

• The United States has ordered non-essential embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia as the kingdom faces near-daily attacks from the Iran-backed Houthis, including a strike on Riyadh's international airport that was the country's deadliest in years.
• State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott confirmed the order applied to non-emergency US government employees and their family members in Saudi Arabia only, while families of embassy staff were also ordered to leave the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, all targeted by Iran during the Middle East war.
• The Saudi energy ministry said falling debris from the interception of a drone targeting the Shaybah oil field near the UAE border killed two people, a Filipino and a Nepali, and injured two others, without saying who launched the drone.
• The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen reported intercepting six drones, and has backed the internationally recognised government since 2015; a four-year-old truce in Yemen's civil war collapsed in June, reviving the conflict that began in 2014.
• The wider Middle East conflict began in late February when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, killing the country's supreme leader, and Iran has attempted to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, which in peacetime carried around a fifth of the world's oil supplies, prompting a US counterblockade on Iranian ports and ships.
• Late on Wednesday, Iranian state media reported the sound of explosions in the Karpan area of Sirik in southern Hormozgan province, with the nature of the explosions not disclosed.