Saudi Defense Ministry says fire broke out at the embassy, but the diplomatic compound sustained only ‘minor’ damage.
The United States Embassy in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, was hit by two drones, and a “limited fire” broke out at the diplomatic compound, as Iran claimed another hit on the US base in Bahrain, increasing regional pressure on Gulf Arab states housing US assets in retaliation for the US-Israel attacks.
The strike on the US Embassy early on Tuesday also caused “minor material damage” to the compound, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. Later reports said more drones were targeting the site amid Iran’s retaliation across the Gulf to US-Israeli attacks.
US President Donald Trump told the NewsNation media outlet that the US response to the embassy attack and the killing of several American service members would soon be made clear. “You’ll find out soon,” he said.
Black smoke was seen rising over Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter, which houses foreign missions, after the attack, the Reuters news agency reported.
Three people told Reuters that a loud blast was heard and flames were seen at the embassy, though the Saudi Defense Ministry and one of the sources told the news agency that the fire in the aftermath of the drone attack was small in scale.
The embassy building was empty at the time of the attack, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, and there were no reports of casualties.
A source close to the Saudi military, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AFP news agency that air defences had intercepted four drones targeting Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter in the attack.
‘Utterly unprecedented’
Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said the US president’s behaviour – providing only snippets of commentary to individual news organisations, as in the case of the embassy attack – was “unprecedented” at a time when the country was engaged in a major conflict.
“Since this conflict began, he’s been phoning up individual reporters, dropping little nuggets of information,” Hanna said, adding that the US public has received very little information from the president about the conflict.
“This is utterly unprecedented in terms of how a president conducts himself in a time of conflict, and that is a question that the American public – a large degree of the American public – are going to be pondering in the days and weeks and, indeed, months ahead,” he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the US Embassy issued a “shelter in place” notice to US citizens in the Saudi Arabian cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Dhahran amid the attacks.
“We recommend American citizens in the Kingdom shelter in place immediately and avoid the Embassy until further notice due to an attack on the facility. The US Mission to Saudi Arabia continues to monitor the regional situation,” the embassy said.
Attacks on Bahrain
Separately on Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a United States airbase in Bahrain, Iran’s elite force said in a statement carried on Tuesday by the official IRNA news agency.
“The IRGC announced that… its naval forces carried out a large-scale drone and missile attack at dawn on the US air base in the Sheikh Isa area of Bahrain,” IRNA posted on Telegram.
The force said in its statement that 20 drones and three missiles were launched, “destroying the base’s main command headquarters”, without providing evidence.
Tehran’s latest claimed attack came after its military launched salvoes across the Gulf region in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks on Iran that began on Saturday.
C. Al Jazeera
