The Trump administration has ordered non-emergency U.S. government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia as deadly Houthi attacks intensify across the kingdom, raising the stakes as President Donald Trump weighs direct military action against the Iran-backed group.
State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott confirmed Wednesday that the mandatory departure order applies only to Saudi Arabia, pushing back on reports that Washington was preparing a broader evacuation of diplomatic personnel across the Gulf.
“The U.S. Department of State issued an ordered departure for non-emergency U.S. government employees and their family members in Saudi Arabia only,” Pigott said.
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The order comes amid a surge in Houthi missile and drone attacks that has left civilians dead, disrupted air travel and sent Saudi Arabia scrambling for additional missile defenses.
“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,” Pigott added.
President Donald Trump is weighing whether to launch direct U.S. military strikes against the Houthis, whose expanding missile and drone campaign has increasingly threatened Saudi cities, airports and energy infrastructure.
Houthi strikes and attempted strikes on Saudi Arabia more than doubled in a single week this month, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, with airports in Riyadh, Jizan, Najran, Dammam and Abha targeted since Oct. 5.
The deadliest barrage struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 300.
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The escalating attacks have prompted Saudi Arabia to seek additional military support from its allies. Britain announced Tuesday that it would deploy Typhoon fighter jets to help defend Saudi cities and critical infrastructure, while Egypt is assisting the kingdom and Israel has offered to help.
Riyadh has also asked Washington for additional missile interceptors, though U.S. officials have warned that global demand is straining available supplies.
“I also talked to Saudi Arabia today; they’d like interceptors. Israel would like interceptors. We would like interceptors. Every country in the world would like interceptors,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday.
Rubio described the weapons as “probably the most in-demand product right now in the defense field,” acknowledging that the United States must balance requests from allies against its own military requirements.
The growing threat has exposed the difficulty of defending Saudi Arabia’s vast territory against relatively inexpensive missiles and drones, even with some of the world’s most sophisticated air defenses.
“Saudi Arabia is a huge geography to protect, and this speaks to a larger threat we’re facing globally: a relatively small nonstate actor can pose a serious challenge to even a sophisticated and extremely expensive military,” Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House, told Fox News Digital in an interview published Wednesday.
“The Houthis can impose enormous costs without having to spend very much themselves,” he said.
Trump has left open the possibility of direct military intervention against the Houthis, telling reporters earlier this month that the U.S. could join Saudi strikes against the group.
“We may. We’re gonna look at it,” Trump said. “We’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.”
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The U.S. conducted a roughly two-month bombing campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen in 2025 before Trump halted the operation following an Oman-brokered agreement.
The U.S. continues to provide intelligence and targeting support to Saudi Arabia as Trump weighs whether to launch another round of strikes against the Houthis.