US Orders Diplomats Out of Saudi Arabia as Houthi Attacks Escalate

WASHINGTON — The United States has ordered non-emergency government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia as Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels escalate a campaign of missile and drone attacks on the kingdom, the State Department said Wednesday. It is the first mandatory evacuation order issued by the department since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in late February.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott confirmed the decision in a post on X, saying "the safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority." The directive applies to non-essential staff at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh and its satellite consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran. The embassy issued a security alert on Wednesday warning of the possibility of further Houthi attacks.

In a revised travel advisory, the department said Iranian-supported Houthis "have engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions," adding that the hostilities "have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area."

An ordered departure, not a recommendation

An ordered departure is a mandatory instruction, not an advisory. Officials said the step follows days of escalating warnings: a series of previous alerts for Saudi Arabia had used nearly identical language and noted that U.S. government personnel now need special permission to use any Saudi airport. The Houthis have routinely targeted Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, which had been closed since early this month.

There were limited signs of normalization on Wednesday. Aircraft from a small number of Saudi airlines took off and landed at the airport, two days after Saudi aviation authorities told carriers they could resume operations with prior permission. Saudia and FlyNas were among those operating flights. But major international carriers including Lufthansa and Air France have canceled flights to Riyadh through mid-November, signaling that the aviation industry sees no swift end to the threat.

The Houthis have acknowledged striking the airport, claiming without evidence that Saudi Arabia funneled military equipment to government forces through the facility.

A kingdom under near-daily fire

Saudi Arabia has come under near-daily attacks this month, including a strike on Riyadh's international airport that officials described as the kingdom's deadliest in years. On Wednesday, the Saudi Energy Ministry said falling debris from the successful interception of a drone targeting an oil facility had killed two workers — a Filipino and a Nepali — and injured two others. The ministry did not say who launched the drone aimed at the Shaybah field near the United Arab Emirates border.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said it had intercepted six drones. The coalition has backed the internationally recognized Yemeni government since 2015, and fighting has intensified since a four-year truce in the country's civil war collapsed in June.

The tempo of attacks marks a dangerous turn in a conflict that has already claimed heavy casualties this month. A Houthi ballistic missile strike on a Yemeni army training camp killed 73 young recruits — the deadliest single attack in months — and the rebels have steadily expanded the reach of their arsenal across the border into Saudi Arabia.

Conflicting signals across the Gulf

Accounts diverged sharply on Wednesday over whether the evacuation would extend beyond Saudi Arabia. A diplomatic source told AFP that families of embassy staff had also been ordered to leave the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, all of which have come under Iranian-linked attacks during the broader Middle East conflict. Four U.S. officials told Reuters that missions in other Gulf states would also order family members to leave, and two officials said the decision for the Riyadh mission could eventually cover all staff and all families, not just non-essential employees.

Pigott rejected those reports. "That is not true," he said, repeating that the ordered departure applies only to Saudi Arabia. Neither account established a broader region-wide evacuation, and the department's public statement was explicit that Wednesday's order was confined to the kingdom.

The confusion underscored the volatility of the moment. The region remains on edge as diplomacy and escalation run in parallel: on Wednesday, Iranian state media reported explosions in the southern Hormozgan province overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, while U.S. and Iranian envoys continue indirect talks through intermediaries.

A skeleton mission since the war began

The Riyadh embassy had been badly damaged at the start of the Iran war and had operated with only a skeleton staff for months, although some diplomats had returned in recent weeks. The return to a mandatory departure marks a reversal of that fragile recovery.

The embassy itself has come under direct attack. The Saudi Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the facility had been hit by two drones, causing "limited fire and minor material damage." The embassy warned people to avoid the location and issued shelter-in-place notifications for Americans in Riyadh as well as in Jeddah and Dhahran, where the consulates are located.

The United States had previously ordered non-essential staff to leave the Gulf ahead of the start of its war against Iran in February and again in July, before President Donald Trump called off a new wave of strikes. CBS News reported that the U.S. military has also been quietly reducing its footprint at posts across the region in response to threats from the Houthis and from Iran directly.

What happens next

Diplomats and analysts said the mandatory departure signals Washington's assessment that the Houthi threat to Saudi Arabia is no longer episodic but systemic — and that it could widen. The State Department's warning that hostilities could "escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area" was read in regional capitals as a deliberate signal to governments and businesses across the Gulf.

For now, the order applies only to Saudi Arabia. But officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose internal deliberations said contingency planning for other missions continues. Whether those plans are activated will depend on the coming days of strikes — and on whether the indirect diplomacy running alongside the military pressure can produce a pause before the escalation curve steepens further.