One person was killed and eight others were injured in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, in eastern Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday evening, the kingdom’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has said.
In a statement issued after the incident on October 21, the aviation authority said the person who died was a resident of Saudi Arabia. The eight injured people, whose injuries ranged from minor to critical, were taken to hospital for treatment, it added.
The authority said the attack also caused material damage at the airport and that officials were still assessing its extent. It did not describe the type of attack and said further updates would follow. Flight-tracking service Flightradar24 reported that aircraft were being diverted away from the airport following the incident.
The airport attack was one of two deadly incidents reported in the kingdom on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said debris from a drone intercepted by air defences near a facility at the Shaybah oilfield, operated by Saudi Aramco, killed two workers — nationals of the Philippines and Nepal — and injured two others, from Pakistan and India. The ministry said falling debris set a contractor’s vehicle on fire outside the facility’s perimeter but did not affect operations at the field.
Later on Wednesday, the United States State Department ordered the departure of non-emergency US government employees and their family members from Saudi Arabia. A department spokesperson said the decision followed increased hostilities against the kingdom, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure that had caused casualties and severe travel disruptions. The US Embassy in Riyadh also issued a security alert warning of possible further attacks.
Saudi authorities did not, in the aviation authority’s statement, identify who was responsible for the airport attack, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility reported for that incident. The wider series of recent attacks on Saudi airports and energy sites has taken place amid an escalation of strikes attributed by Saudi Arabia and the United States to Yemen’s Houthi movement, which had not commented on the Dammam airport incident in the initial reports.
King Fahd International Airport, located about 20 kilometres northwest of Dammam near the Gulf coast, is the main gateway to Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. The airport had also been targeted earlier this month, according to Saudi officials, as projectile and drone attacks on airports in the kingdom intensified.
Authorities said assessments and investigations were continuing, and travellers were advised to follow official updates on the airport’s operations.
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