US orders diplomats out of Saudi Arabia as Pentagon pulls troops from Middle East bases, Houthi strikes kill two at Dammam airport and an oil field

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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after arriving on Air Force One (AP) independent.co.uk

The US State Department has ordered non-emergency diplomats and family members out of its missions in Saudi Arabia, with plans being drawn for further withdrawals from other embassies in the region, the Independent reports. The Pentagon is simultaneously pulling American troops from bases in the Middle East, with personnel moved from Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait, according to US officials speaking to NBC and CBS. Officials have also presented Donald Trump with options for striking Iran, NBC News reports. The drawdown and the attack planning sit uneasily together, and both land two weeks before the US midterm elections. The immediate trigger is the Houthi escalation. The Iran-aligned Yemeni movement killed at least two people and injured eight in an attack on the civilian airport in Dammam, and two more died in a drone strike on a Saudi oil field on Wednesday. A recent Houthi strike on Riyadh's airport killed dozens, and the US embassy there has issued a security alert warning of possible further attacks. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on X that Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, hitting civilian airports and critical infrastructure. Washington had only recently returned diplomatic personnel to the region after pulling most of them out when Tehran attacked US facilities at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran in late February. The fighting in Yemen has opened another front in that war, and the damage to the global energy trade is now visible in every fuel price series. The reduction of forces cuts against the strike options on the President's desk, unless it is not a reduction at all but a repositioning ahead of one. Either way, the officials describing it insisted on anonymity, two weeks before the country votes.