Riyadh, Oct 22: One Saudi resident was killed in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf near Bahrain and Qatar, the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority announced early on Thursday.
The aviation authority also said eight people were injured in the late Wednesday attack and the airport suffered some material damage. Global flight-tracking service Flightradar24 said on X that flights have been diverted away from the airport.
Authorities did not say who carried out the attack or provide further details.
King Fahd airport has been attacked previously amid a wider wave of Houthi missile and projectile strikes targeting major airports in Saudi Arabia.
The Iranian-backed Houthis have not commented on this attack. The Saudi Coalition announced that it intercepted four drone attacks in the eastern region.
Late on Wednesday, the United States ordered some diplomats and the families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia following a series of deadly attacks in the country by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels and rising fears of an escalation in hostilities.
The latest attack came after Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry said that debris from an intercepted drone killed two people and injured two others at an Aramco-operated oil field in the country’s southeast.
The ministry said the two people killed were Nepali and Filipino nationals, while the injured were Pakistani and Indian nationals.
Last month, debris from an intercepted Houthi drone killed a Yemeni resident of Saudi Arabia. It was the first civilian casualty since the Houthis increased their attacks against the kingdom, targeting Saudi shipping and oil facilities.
Earlier this month, a limited fire broke out in an administrative building at Aramco, one of the world’s largest oil facilities, targeted in an attack in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, the energy ministry said at the time. ( PTI )
