Oct 22 (Reuters) - Saudi state oil company Aramco has ordered the evacuation of its headquarters in Dhahran, six people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Thursday, as fighting between the world's largest crude exporter and Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis intensifies.
Clashes between the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition that backs Yemen's internationally recognised government have raged since the group pushed towards Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a shipping chokepoint at the Red Sea's mouth.
The instruction
to staff to evacuate the building and work remotely follows a wave of Houthi attacks on the kingdom, targeting the company and Saudi airports. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what would be the first evacuation since the start of the Iran war.
It was unclear what the reason for the evacuation was.
The kingdom's benchmark index .TASI dropped 2.5% on Thursday following the Aramco news, according to LSEG data.
The renewed fighting between Saudi Arabia and Houthi militias in recent weeks ended a 2022 UN-brokered truce, which had largely halted cross-border attacks, and opened another front in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The Saudi-led coalition said on Thursday it had intercepted drones over Riyadh and Islam's holy city of Medina.
The Houthis caused extensive damage to Aramco's headquarters earlier this month when they struck the building, with fire spreading across several floors.
Saudi Arabia has responded to Houthi attacks with a wave of strikes on missile launcher sites, vowing to protect the kingdom, and says it has intercepted many ballistic missiles fired by the group.
Houthis military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Thursday that the group is rescuing a boat carrying 14 Indians that was attacked off Jabal Zuqar island near the strait, one of the territories the group seized in an advance in September.
Saree blamed the attack on Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
HOUTHI AIRPORT ATTACKS
A Houthi attack on King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia's eastern oil hub of Dammam near Dhahran on Wednesday evening killed two people, a Saudi citizen and an Indian national, and wounded eight others.
Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said on Thursday that operations at the airport had resumed and air traffic had returned to normal.
The Houthis had warned airlines this month against using Saudi airspace as they have repeatedly targeted Saudi airports, including Riyadh's international airport.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari, Marwa Rashad, Olesya Astakhova, Dmitry Zhdannikov, and Maha El Dahan,Nayera Abdallah, Tala Ramadan, Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Nayera AbdallahEditing by Peter Graff, Ros Russell, Philippa Fletcher)
