Drones struck the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh and more explosions rocked cities across the Gulf Tuesday as Iran targeted industrial and diplomatic sites around the Middle East and governments raced to evacuate their nationals from the region.
Four days after U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and triggered a regional war that has seen missile and drone strikes across the Gulf and beyond, AFP reporters in the Saudi capital saw smoke damage on the walls and roof of the American embassy.
Saudi police were swarming the diplomatic quarter and checking the IDs of everyone who entered. Several roads were blocked, including those to the U.S. embassy. The Saudi foreign ministry described the attack as "heinous and unjustified."
Journalists in the Bahraini and Qatari capitals heard more explosions and sirens and the Iranian armed forces announced they had launched strikes on targets in Israel and on the major U.S. air base in al-Udeid, Qatar. Qatar said it had thwarted attacks on its airport.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini, meanwhile, warned that "the gates of hell will open more and more, moment by moment, upon the United States and Israel."
