WARNING: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened to strike US bases across the Middle East if the US continues to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz
AFP, RIYADH and WASHINGTON
A late-night attack on Saudi Arabia’s Dammam airport killed two people and injured eight others, the civil aviation authority said on yesterday, a day after Washington ordered nonessential US embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, as the kingdom comes under sustained deadly attacks by Yemen’s Houthis.
A Saudi Arabian and an Indian man were killed in the attack on Wednesday, the Saudi Arabian General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement.
Damage to the airport was being assessed, it added.
A man in Sana’a yesterday reads a newspaper featuring news of the escalating conflict with Saudi Arabia.
Photo: EPA
In the past few weeks, Houthi attacks on Saudi oil and civilian infrastructure have reached an unprecedented scale, forcing Riyadh to shut its main airport and postpone a major investment conference.
Twenty-two people have been killed in attacks on Saudi airports this month, official figures showed.
“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,” US Department of State spokesman Tommy Pigott wrote on social media.
“The safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority,” he added.
A diplomatic source in the Middle East said that some families of US embassy personnel were also being withdrawn in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, but Pigott said that Wednesday’s order was for the departure of nonemergency embassy staff and their families in Saudi Arabia only.
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Energy on Wednesday said that falling debris from the interception of a drone targeting an oil facility killed two people and injured a further two.
“The attempted attack resulted in the deaths of two individuals, a Filipino and a Nepalese, and injuries to two others,” the ministry said in a statement.
It did not say who launched the drone aimed at Shaybah oil field near the UAE border.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen reported intercepting six drones.
The US previously ordered nonessential staff to leave the Gulf ahead of the start of its war against Iran in late February and again in July before US President Donald Trump called off a new wave of strikes.
Iranian state media late on Wednesday reported the sound of explosions in the southern Hormozgan province overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, breaking a spell of relative calm.
“A few minutes ago, the sound of several explosions was heard in the Karpan area of Sirik, in Hormozgan Province,” the Islamic Republic News Agency said.
It added that “local sources have not yet disclosed the nature of these explosions.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps yesterday threatened to strike US bases across the Middle East if the US military continues to escort ships through the strait.
“The US military must know that if this trend continues, the conflict will extend to its bases in the region,” the corps, the ideological arm of Iran’s military, said in a statement on its Sepah News Web site.
“This is a serious warning,” it added.
Iran claims control over Hormuz, a strategic shipping route through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies passed before war broke out in February.
It regularly attacks ships that attempt to navigate the strait without its authorization.