Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, told employees on Thursday, October 22, to leave its headquarters in Dhahran and work remotely, six people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The company has not said why. Reuters reported that "it was unclear what the reason for the evacuation was," and Bloomberg reported that it followed an alarm whose cause "was not immediately known"; Aramco did not respond to either agency. Reuters described it as Aramco's first evacuation of the headquarters since the current war began, and The New Arab reported no immediate indication that production or exports were disrupted. The same day, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised speech that the group had attacked Aramco facilities in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia's main Red Sea oil port, and the Saudi Defense Ministry in Riyadh. Saudi authorities did not confirm either attack; the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed four drones over the Riyadh and Medina regions.
A headquarters already hit
The building had been struck before. A missile hit an administrative building at the Dhahran headquarters on the night of October 13. Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry said that attack "caused only a limited fire and resulted in no injuries or deaths," but three people familiar with the incident told Reuters it caused extensive damage, with fire spreading across multiple floors, and Bloomberg reported that about three floors of a tower were damaged. The two accounts have not been reconciled.
Attacks near Dhahran continued in the days before the evacuation. On the evening of October 21, an attack on King Fahd International Airport in nearby Dammam killed two people, a Saudi citizen and an Indian national, and wounded eight, according to Saudi Arabia's civil aviation authority, which said the airport later resumed normal operations. The same day, debris from a drone intercepted over the Shaybah oilfield killed two foreign workers, a Filipino and a Nepali, AFP reported; the Energy Ministry said production there was not affected. Also on October 21, the U.S. State Department ordered non-emergency U.S. government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia. Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said "Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia," including attacks on civilian airports and critical infrastructure.
Since the briefing: Mecca, Medina and Riyadh's airport
On Saturday, October 24, Saudi Civil Defense said it had intercepted two ballistic missiles fired by the Houthis toward the Mecca and Medina regions, with debris falling in several places, and reported no casualties or damage. The Houthis denied targeting the holy cities; Saree called the Saudi claim "a great and grievous falsehood." Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport announced a partial reopening on Sunday, October 25, after a two-week closure following Houthi strikes; it was unclear how much of the airport was operating, and Saree warned airlines that the airport "is unsafe and serves as a military target for our forces." A Houthi attack earlier this month killed 13 people and wounded more than 300, the deadliest attack in the kingdom in more than a decade, according to The New Arab.
How the war got here
The fighting resumed after a years-long truce between the Houthis and Yemen's Saudi-backed government collapsed (Profoundd covered an earlier stage of the war on October 6). The Houthis declared a naval blockade of the kingdom in mid-July, and the Saudi-led coalition has been striking targets in Yemen; Saree says Saudi attacks have killed or wounded 562 people in Yemen since mid-July, a figure that has not been independently verified. Since the summer, the Houthis have repeatedly claimed strikes on Aramco facilities in Jizan, Yanbu, Najran and Riyadh; Saudi Arabia has rejected some of those claims and acknowledged others, including the October 13 strike on the Dhahran headquarters. Egypt's parliament is weighing whether to authorize its armed forces to help defend Saudi Arabia, which under Egypt's constitution requires a two-thirds majority; lawmakers postponed the vote to October 26. The speaker of the Houthi-run parliament in Sanaa warned that if Egypt took that path, "it would pose a grave threat to its own national security and internal stability."
Markets
Saudi Arabia's benchmark stock index fell 2.5 percent on October 22 after the evacuation news, according to LSEG data. Brent crude rose nearly 3 percent that day, touching $112.55 a barrel, its highest since May 18, Reuters reported. Tamas Varga of the brokerage PVM Oil said reports of higher exports were "more than countered by attacks on ships" and the Houthi strikes. This is news reporting, not investment advice; check current prices before acting on them.
This article reflects reporting through the evening of Sunday, October 25, 2026. Claims by the Houthis and by the Saudi-led coalition are each side's own and have mostly not been independently verified. Sources: Reuters via Business Recorder, October 22; The New Arab, October 22; Dawn, October 23; Al Jazeera, October 21, on the State Department order; The New Arab, October 25; The Jerusalem Post; Tempo; Al Jazeera, October 19; Wikipedia, "2026 in Saudi Arabia", citing AFP and Reuters.
