Riyadh: The situation in the Middle East continues to remain on the boil with the US embassy in Riyadh being hit by two Iranian drones, late on Monday.
There was a fire and some loss to property, Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday. The drone strikes prompted US president Donald Trump to warn Iran, saying, “You’ll find out soon what the retaliation will be.”
An initial assessment showed the US embassy compound had been hit by two drones, resulting in a fire on Monday night. There were no injuries reported, given that the building was empty in the early morning hours, Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said in a post on X, India Today reported.
A viral video shows a huge blaze and thick plumes of smoke coming out of the drone-hit US Embassy as fire engines reach the spot to douse the flames. The authenticity of the video could not be ascertained.
Iran has been carrying out missile and drone strikes on countries in the Gulf that host US military bases. This is in retaliation to the joint US-Israel strike on Iran that led to the killing of the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump did not name Iran, but warned that retaliation was imminent. Speaking to NewsNation in an interview cited by a reporter on X, Trump said: “You’ll find out soon what the retaliation will be,” referring both to the embassy strike and to the deaths of US military personnel in the ongoing confrontation with Iran.
The US Embassy issued a “shelter in place” advisory for American citizens in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dhahran shortly after the incident. The advisory urged US nationals to avoid visiting the mission until further notice due to the strike on the facility.
Officials in Riyadh did not detail whether the drones were intercepted or how they penetrated air defences over the capital.
The drone attack on the US embassy came even as Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport remains operational and open for flights. However, hundreds of flights are either delayed or cancelled due to airspace closures in neighbouring Gulf countries.
