Attack on Dammam’s King Fahd airport kills two as Washington orders non-emergency staff out of Saudi Arabia


Saudi Aramco passenger jets parked in front of the general aviation terminal at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Aramco aircraft parked at the general aviation terminal of King Fahd International Airport, Dammam. [file photo] Photo: Hmn1988 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

An attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on Wednesday evening killed two people and wounded eight, Saudi Arabia's civil aviation authority said Thursday, the latest deadly strike on the kingdom's airports.

The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said the dead were a Saudi citizen and an Indian resident. The wounded were one Saudi, two Indians, two Yemenis, two Bangladeshis and one Nepali, and operations at the airport in the Eastern Province had resumed, according to the authority's statement as reported by Al-Jazirah newspaper, the BBC and TRT. The first figures released on Wednesday evening spoke of one dead and eight injured, a toll shared on X by the account Makkah Update, citing Saudi state broadcaster Al Ekhbariya.

The aviation authority did not say who carried out the attack. On Thursday, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said King Fahd International Airport was among the sites the group had targeted with drones and missiles over the previous 48 hours, along with Abha International Airport, the Defense Ministry headquarters in Riyadh and an Aramco facility in Yanbu, the BBC and Al Jazeera reported. Earlier on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry said debris from an intercepted drone fell at the Aramco Shaybah field and killed two residents, from the Philippines and Nepal, according to the BBC. The Saudi-led coalition also said it intercepted drones launched toward the Eastern Province and Medina, TRT reported.

The BBC, citing Saudi authorities, said at least 21 people have been killed in attacks on Saudi airports since the start of October, including 13 when Riyadh's airport was hit on October 10.

In Washington, the State Department ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. Government employees and their family members from Saudi Arabia. When a report said the order also covered other Gulf missions, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott wrote on X on Wednesday that "this is inaccurate," saying the ordered departure applied "in Saudi Arabia only" and that "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."

A security alert from the U.S. Mission to Saudi Arabia dated October 21 said operations at Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport remain suspended while the airports in Jeddah and Dammam were operating with delays, and it warned that "the hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area." The State Department's travel advisory page for Saudi Arabia on Thursday still showed a Level 3 advisory.

Inside Yemen, the Houthis kept up pressure on government-held Hadramout. A local security official told Xinhua that Houthi drones targeted the area of the Al-Dhabba oil terminal near Al-Shihr on Wednesday and that another ballistic missile was fired at Al-Rayyan International Airport in Mukalla, hours after four missiles struck it. Yemeni journalist Kamal al-Salami wrote on X that the Dhabba terminal, about 35 kilometers from Mukalla, was targeted by a drone as attacks on the airport resumed. Ahmed al-Hilali posted a video on X that he said showed the moment a missile exploded at the airport, and an account posting as mbakwt1967 wrote that more than seven explosions were heard from the direction of Al-Rayyan and Al-Dhabba. The army spokesperson, Majed al-Nuzaili, said early Thursday that the airport had been targeted for the fourth time within hours, Anadolu Agency reported.

Saree also claimed one of the strikes on Al-Rayyan, saying the group targeted military equipment that he said had been flown into the airport on Saudi military cargo aircraft, Xinhua reported, adding that he gave no evidence. Faraj al-Bahsani, who describes himself on X as vice president of the Presidential Leadership Council, wrote on Thursday that "the South will not break" and that neither Aden nor Hadramout would bow to missiles or threats. The council's head, Rashad al-Alimi, condemned the strikes on the Aden and Al-Rayyan airports and called on the international community to designate the Houthis a "terrorist" organization, according to Al Jazeera.

On the ground, fighting has moved to Taiz. Al-Nuzaili said on Wednesday that government forces carried out 835 operations against the Houthis and killed or wounded 285 of their fighters, with heavy clashes on the Jabal Han heights west of Taiz and in the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts, Al Jazeera reported. The figures could not be independently verified. The Defense Ministry on Thursday warned civilians in Houthi-held areas to stay away from Houthi rallies and "cultural courses," saying such gatherings would be treated as legitimate military targets.

The humanitarian cost is rising. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said almost 260,000 people have been displaced since August, about half of them in Taiz, and the UN Human Rights Office has verified 251 civilian casualties, 57 killed and 194 injured, half of the dead being children. Yemen's Ministry of Education has said more than 2.5 million children are out of school because of the conflict.

A 2022 truce collapsed in July, when the Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and the Government's "Dawn of Yemen" counteroffensive, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, began earlier this month with the aim of retaking areas including Sanaa, Al Jazeera reported.

Sources

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