Three people were killed while 10, including a Pakistani national, were injured on Wednesday in fresh attacks targeting an airport and oil facility in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province on Wednesday, authorities said.
The King Fahd Airport in Dammam came under attack on Wednesday in which two people were killed while eight others were injured, the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said early Thursday.
The second attack took place on Wednesday morning, when Saudi air defenses intercepted a drone attempting to target a processing facility at Aramco’s Shaybah oil field in the Eastern Province, the Saudi energy ministry said. The Shaybah incident resulted in a fire in a vehicle belonging to a contractor operating at the oil field, outside the facility’s perimeter, the ministry said. Operations were unaffected, it added.
“The attempted attack resulted in the deaths of two individuals, a Filipino and a Nepali, and injuries to two others, a Pakistani and an Indian, due to falling debris following the interception,” the Saudi energy ministry said.
While the Saudi authorities did not explicitly mention who carried out the attacks, the development takes place amid an increase in missile and drone attacks against the Kingdom by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition announced on Thursday that it intercepted and destroyed a drone in the Riyadh region. Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said in a brief statement on X that the drone had been intercepted and destroyed, without providing further details on its origin or intended target.
Following the attacks, Saudi Aramco instructed staff to evacuate its headquarters in Dhahran and work remotely, six sources with knowledge of the the matter said during the day. Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said two people were killed, and eight were injured in an attack on Wednesday evening on King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil city of Dammam.
Those killed were a Saudi citizen and an Indian national, the authority said. The injuries ranged from minor to serious. Damage was being assessed, it added. Airport operations had resumed, and air traffic had returned to normal, the authority said.
Meanwhile, 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 missions in the region, US officials told Reuters.
The order came amid attacks in Saudi Arabia.
State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a post on X that the department ordered the departure of “non-emergency US government employees and their family members in Saudi Arabia only” amid attacks by the Houthis in Yemen on civilian targets in the country. Washington had returned some diplomatic personnel to the region in recent months after many were pulled out when Tehran launched attacks on US facilities after the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February.
Four US officials told Reuters that US missions in other Gulf states would also be ordering family members to leave. Pigott did not address changes to other missions outside Saudi Arabia.