Saudi Arabia's aviation authority has confirmed what it calls an attack on one of the kingdom's main international airports — and hours into a widening regional crisis, officials still have not said what hit it or who sent it.
Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation confirmed on Wednesday evening that King Fahd International Airport in Dammam "was targeted by an attack," in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. One resident was killed and eight people were injured, with injuries ranging from minor to critical. The authority said property damage was still being assessed, and flight-tracking data showed flights being diverted away from the airport.
What Saudi officials have not said is as significant as what they have. The authority did not identify the weapon used, did not name who carried the attack out, and described the person killed as a resident — without giving a nationality.
In a separate statement the same day, Saudi-led coalition spokesman Brigadier General Turki al-Malki said Saudi air defenses had intercepted and destroyed four unmanned aerial vehicles targeting the kingdom's Eastern Province on Wednesday. The Energy Ministry separately reported six drones intercepted in the area of the Shaybah oilfield, where falling debris from an intercepted drone killed two workers earlier in the crisis. The statements were issued separately, and officials did not publicly link any specific interception to the airport attack.
King Fahd International Airport "was targeted by an attack."
The airport attack came as the United States moves to draw down its exposure across the Gulf. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott publicly rejected reports that ordered departures were being extended beyond Saudi Arabia — while four officials told Reuters that withdrawals of family members were being planned at other American missions in the region.
King Fahd International is the main air gateway to Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, the heart of the kingdom's oil industry and home to Saudi Aramco's core operations. An attack that kills and wounds at one of the kingdom's largest airports marks a sharp escalation in a week that has already seen the United States order non-emergency staff and families out of the country — and, so far, no claim of responsibility and no official account of what struck the airport.