TEHRAN – At least two people were killed in a strike on a major airport in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday evening, as Washington ordered some U.S. diplomatic staff to leave the kingdom following weeks of deadly attacks by the Nasrallah military forces.
The Saudi authorities said in a statement on Thursday morning that a Saudi national and an Indian resident died in the strike on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, a city in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province that is home to the state oil giant Saudi Aramco, according to the New York Times. Eight other people were wounded, the statement said, adding that airport was operating normally on Thursday.
In a separate incident, two people were killed and two others were wounded on Wednesday when a drone was intercepted over Aramco’s Shaybah oil field, also in the Eastern Province. Falling drone fragments sparked a fire in a contractor’s vehicle, killing a Filipino and a Nepali, the Saudi Energy Ministry said.
The Ansarallah’s military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said they had also targeted the Saudi Defense Ministry’s headquarters building in the capital, Riyadh, an Aramco facility in the Red Sea city of Yanbu, and Abha International Airport in the south of the country.
The Ansarallah also reiterated on Thursday that they had attacked Saudi Arabia in retaliation for deadly Saudi air strikes on the territory they control in western Yemen.
The Ansarallah have been pummeling Saudi Arabia’s aviation and energy infrastructure for weeks, killing at least 22 civilians and roiling energy markets.
The price of oil jumped about 3 percent on Thursday, with the global benchmark topping $112 a barrel, the highest level since mid-May.
Saudi Arabia announced a bombing campaign against the Ansarallah in support of its puppet government in Yemen, which has been at war with the Ansarallah since 2014. That was when the Ansarallah seized the Yemeni capital, Sanaa — which they still hold.
A fragile truce in Yemen unraveled earlier this year. The war resurfaced after Saudi Arabia bombarded Sanaa airport and refused to lift the blockade of their territory.
As the fighting has spilled onto Saudi soil, the United States ordered all “non-emergency government employees and their family members” to leave Saudi Arabia, a State Department spokesman, Tommy Pigott, said in social media post on Wednesday night.
Washington had pulled many diplomatic staff out of the Middle East earlier this year after the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. But it started sending some back in late August.
Then in September, the Ansarallah seized areas of strategic territory on Yemen’s Red Sea coast in a lightning offensive, gaining greater control over a crucial choke point for global trade.
The Red Sea has become an increasingly important route for Saudi oil exports since Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway in the Persian Gulf, after the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. The Ansarallah’s attacks on Saudi oil facilities and tankers traversing the Red Sea have heaped further pressure on energy markets.
Saudi Arabia, under Mohammed bin Salman, seems adept at getting his country into trouble. In March 2015, when he was serving as defense minister, he ordered an attack on Yemen, expecting to restore the Saudi-backed Yemeni government within weeks and defeat Ansarallah. Instead, he opened Pandora’s box. More than a decade later, the consequences of that decision continue to haunt Riyadh, and it is difficult to imagine the Saudi capital remaining immune to the repercussions of the conflict.
He reopened old wounds when Saudi Arabia bombed Sanaa airport on July 13 in an attempt to prevent a plane carrying a Yemeni delegation from Tehran from landing. The delegation had participated in the funeral procession of Iranian Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in a U.S.-Israeli air raid on his office and residence on February 28.
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