The State Department’s decision to order non-emergency American personnel and their families out of Saudi Arabia marks a notable turn in a conflict that Washington has largely watched from a distance. The order followed another deadly Houthi strike on a Saudi civilian airport, and it came in the same week that the kingdom’s national oil company told its remaining headquarters staff to stay home.

Get prayer updates from IFA.

View Comments (0)

The Houthis are not a wealthy adversary. They are a militia governing parts of one of the poorest countries in the region, armed and supplied by Iran. Yet they have now forced a major oil producer to relocate office workers, driven American diplomats from their posts, and moved regional markets sharply lower.

Wednesday night’s attack struck King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, killing two people and wounding eight. It was the latest in a pattern of drone and missile strikes on Saudi civilian airports rather than military installations. Dammam sits roughly ten miles from Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran, which a Houthi missile seriously damaged the previous week. That building remained operational, and some employees stayed at their posts while nonessential staff began working remotely.

By Thursday, sources told Agence France-Presse that all remaining employees at the Dhahran complex had been directed to work from home until further notice. One source said an evacuation order was issued without a stated reason. The wider complex includes residential areas that have not been closed or evacuated.

The same day, Saudi military officials reported intercepting four Houthi drones near Mecca and Medina. The Houthis provoked broad outrage across the Muslim world in September when they threatened Mecca, but that condemnation has not translated into concrete action. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott confirmed the mandatory departure order while denying reports that American staff elsewhere in the region had also been directed to leave ahead of possible wider hostilities. He pointed to attacks on civilian airports and critical infrastructure that have caused casualties and serious travel disruption.

Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House, told Fox News Digital that the kingdom faces a structural problem: too much territory to shield, studded with too many soft targets. A comparatively small nonstate actor, he said, can impose enormous costs on a sophisticated and very expensive military while spending very little itself.

The financial reaction was immediate. Aramco shares slipped 0.7 percent, Saudi National Bank dropped 5.1 percent, and the Saudi benchmark index fell 2.3 percent, its steepest weekly decline in more than two years and among the largest in the market’s history. Dubai and Abu Dhabi indexes each lost 0.7 percent.

Intercessors should pray with clear eyes for a region that supplies much of the world’s energy, for believers in Saudi Arabia who face real cost for their faith, and for the humility to trust God rather than the war horse. Let’s pray for the families of the two people killed at Dammam and for those recovering from their injuries. Pray for the American diplomats and personnel now departing Saudi Arabia, and for the safety of the small body of Christian believers in the kingdom, who worship under heavy restrictions and at real personal cost. Ask the Lord for wisdom for American officials weighing how to respond to attacks on civilian infrastructure and shipping lanes, for restraint on all sides, and for protection over Israel and over the holy cities now under drone threat. Pray that the Gospel would reach those formed by an ideology of violence, and that leaders in Riyadh and Washington would govern with humility before God rather than confidence in the war horse.

How are you praying about this issue? Share your prayers and scriptures in the comments below.

(Excerpt from Breitbart. Photo Credit: Leonid Andronov from Leonid Andronov via Canva).