Saudi Aramco Essential HQ Staff Told to Leave, Sources Say
Essential staff at Saudi Aramco’s headquarters were told to evacuate, sources told AFP, as Saudi Arabia downs four drones and Egypt urges a political solution.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - Essential staff at the headquarters of Saudi oil giant Aramco in the east of the country were told to evacuate on Thursday, two sources briefed on the matter told AFP. Their non-essential colleagues had already been told to work from home since last week.
Most staff had been working remotely since Yemen’s Houthis hit the Dhahran facility last week, three sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Only essential staff remained on site. Two of the sources said those employees have now also been told to work from home until further notice.
Saudi Arabia said on Thursday that it downed drones in the areas of Riyadh and the holy city of Medina, as the Houthis carry out daily attacks on the kingdom.
“Interception and destruction of four drones in the regions of Riyadh and Medina,” Turki al-Maliki, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-backed group, said in a post on X.
The Houthis have escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia this month, including strikes on Riyadh’s airport, and only one of them killed 13 people and wounded hundreds of others on Oct. 10, in the deadliest attack on the kingdom’s territory in more than a decade.
Separately, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said on Thursday that all options must be explored to find a political solution between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.
At a press conference, where he reiterated solidarity with Saudi Arabia, Abdelatty stressed “the necessity of exploring all avenues for reaching political solutions that guarantee a complete withdrawal from the territories occupied recently.”
Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen in support of the internationally recognized government. This month it has come under near-daily attacks from the Houthis, including the strike on Riyadh’s airport, which was the kingdom’s deadliest in years.
The Houthis launched a major offensive in September in which they seized Yemeni government-held territory along the Red Sea coast.
That followed the collapse in July of a years-long truce in Yemen’s civil war. The group also declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest exporter of crude, and began hitting its ships, territory and oil facilities.
In response, the Saudi air force has frequently attacked areas under Houthi control, which include much of Yemen. More than 250,000 people have been internally displaced by the fighting there.