US orders non-emergency personnel and families to leave Saudi Arabia after Houthi attacks

The departure order marks a reduction in the US diplomatic presence in Saudi Arabia during a period of heightened security concern. The State Department’s action followed reported attacks affecting Saudi infrastructure and civilian facilities, although the supplied reports do not establish that every reported incident occurred at the same time or formed part of a single attack.

The Hill reported that the order covered non-emergency US government employees and their family members. Bloomberg Markets and the Financial Times likewise described the move as applying to some or non-emergency personnel, while the South China Morning Post reported that some diplomats and family members were told to depart from US missions in Saudi Arabia.

The exact scope remains unsettled. One report from The New Indian Express said that all US embassy staff and their families had been ordered to leave, but that account conflicts with the narrower formulation used by multiple other supplied reports. The available material does not establish how many personnel or family members were affected.

The State Department cited an increasing Houthi threat and warned that hostilities could escalate rapidly, including beyond the immediate area, according to reporting by The Hill. Al Jazeera reported that the department said the Iran-aligned Houthis had increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia.

The supplied reporting linked the security decision to attacks in Saudi Arabia. The Financial Times reported that a drone attack on an oilfield killed two people. The Financial Times identified the target as Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield, a detail supported in the supplied material by that publication alone.

The South China Morning Post, citing Reuters and US officials, reported that an attack at a civilian airport in Dammam killed at least one person and injured eight others. The Times of India also reported one death and eight injuries in a Saudi airport attack, but the supplied summary of that report does not identify Dammam. Other supplied accounts gave different totals for attacks involving an airport and an oilfield, so the figures should not be combined into a single casualty count.

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott publicly addressed the security situation, according to The Hill, the South China Morning Post and The Guardian. Those reports said Pigott emphasized that the safety and security of department personnel and their families were a priority. The supplied material does not provide a complete version of his statement in every account.

Several supplied publications described the Houthis as Iranian-backed, Iranian-supported or aligned with Iran, including The Hill, Al Jazeera and The Guardian. That characterization is attributed to those reports; the available material does not independently establish the degree or nature of Iranian support. It also does not establish whether the US order represents a wider withdrawal from the region beyond the Saudi personnel and family measures described in the confirmed reporting.