The United States Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was attacked by two drones according to initial estimates from the Saudi Ministry of Defense in a statement early on Tuesday morning in the Middle East, as Iran appeared to be expanding its assault on American allies in the region.
The ministry said there was “limited fire and minor material damage to the building.” However, the embassy warned people to avoid the location, saying there had been “an attack on the facility” and issued a security alert and a shelter in place notification for the cities of Jeddah, Riyadh and Dhahran.
“We recommend American citizens in the Kingdom to shelter in place immediately,” it said, noting that it was limiting “nonessential travel to any military installations in the region.”
The embassy’s announcement came as nations across the Middle East hosting American military bases were facing Iran’s ire following the American-Israeli war on Iran that began on Saturday and that has killed many top military and political officials in Iran, including the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Riyadh had so far been spared the spate of attacks that had rocked other Gulf cities including, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and Manama, the capital of Bahrain. Most of the city’s embassies, including the U.S. Embassy, are in a secluded, heavily secured and gated neighborhood called the Diplomatic Quarters.
But the fortifications there were built to prevent risks such as suicide attacks, not drones.
Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Gulf States in retaliation after the barrage of American and Israeli strikes over the past three days. The majority of the Iranian attacks were intercepted, according to the governments of the Gulf countries.
At least four people were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the attacks across the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman as of Sunday, according to official reports tallied by The New York Times.
The toll of the fighting on American service members also rose on Monday, with six military personnel killed in the fighting so far, according to U.S. Central Command.
Iran has launched at least 390 missiles and 830 drone attacks across the Persian Gulf, home to several U.S. military bases, according to government reports. The United States Central Command said on Sunday that Iran had attacked more than a dozen locations in the region, including civilian centers like airports, hotels and residential areas.
Early on Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates’ ministry of defense said on social media that the Emirates’ air defenses were “dealing with a barrage of ballistic missiles coming from Iran.”
Similarly, the defense ministry of Bahrain said its air defense systems have successfully destroyed and downed 70 missiles and 76 drones from Iran since the conflict began.
Sirens also sounded in Israel and the military sent residents in several areas there to shelters after saying it detected launches from Iran for about an hour in the early hours of Tuesday. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem had on Monday directed that all U.S. government employees and their family members continue to shelter in place in and near their residences until further notice, and said it would be closed on Tuesday.
The hostilities in the region have left travelers scrambling. In recent days, airstrikes forced the closure of airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, Qatar. In Dubai, the largest Emirati city and the business and tourism capital of the Middle East, five-star hotels have caught fire, explosions have shattered the windows of apartment towers and the emirate’s bustling international airport was damaged, injuring four people.
The United States and Israel are also continuing to target Iran. Israel said it had targeted the Iranian regime’s broadcaster in Tehran around midnight.
In a post on social media on Tuesday in the Middle East, U.S. Central Command said “this morning, U.S. forces are hitting Iran surgically, overwhelmingly, and unapologetically.”
Vivian Nereim contributed reporting.
Ephrat Livni is a Times reporter covering breaking news around the world. She is based in Washington.
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