Attack on CIA station in Riyadh comes as Iran widens retaliation across the Middle East

US President Donald Trump with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House last November. Photo / Getty Images

A suspected Iranian drone attack hit the CIA’s station at the United States Embassy in Saudi Arabia yesterday in what would amount to a symbolic victory for the Islamic republic as it lashes out at US targets and personnel across the Middle East, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The US and Saudi governments confirmed that two drones hit the US Embassy complex in Riyadh but did not disclose that America’s spy hub was hit in the attack.

No CIA personnel were wounded. The agency declined to comment.

The drone attack came days into a conflict launched on Saturday by the United States and Israel on Iran.

The waves of strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader and scores of its senior military and political command have prompted fierce retaliation by the Islamic republic against US and Israeli targets in the region, as well as those of Gulf partners.

An internal State Department alert obtained by the Washington Post said the drone attack “collapsed” part of the embassy’s roof and “contaminated” the inside with smoke.

The notice said the embassy sustained “structural damage” and personnel “continue to shelter in place”.

The extent of the damage to the station, which was on the embassy’s top floor and is one of the largest in the region, was not immediately clear.

The US Embassy in Riyadh and embassies in Lebanon and Kuwait were closed as of today and US citizens were told to stay away until further notice.

While the attack amounts to a minor setback for the spy agency’s presence in Saudi Arabia, it may find significance to an embattled Iranian regime that has long viewed the CIA as its ultimate foe, given Washington’s covert support for the 1953 military coup that ousted Iran’s elected prime minister.

Saudi Arabia was among the Gulf countries publicly pushing for a diplomatic solution to avert war in January, but privately, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple phone calls to President Donald Trump over the past month, advocating a US attack, the Post reported on Saturday.

Mohammed’s position was reinforced by his brother, Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman, who held closed-door meetings with US officials in Washington in January and warned about the downsides of not attacking, the Post reported.

That month, Trump named Saudi Arabia a major non-Nato ally, conferring military and financial privileges, especially in defence trade and security co-operation. The kingdom is one of Washington’s most important partners in the Middle East because of its oil wealth and significant influence across much of the Arab world.

Former CIA officers who have worked in the region say that the loss of the station is a disruption but that there are work-arounds.

“Drawdowns are a part of the business,” said one former officer who served in the Middle East, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the clandestine agency.

“The local liaison relationship is so tight I think the Saudis will roll out the red carpet” to accommodate the spy agency personnel. “There’s a lot of redundancy built into these things.”

A second former CIA officer who served in the region said “the agency has had a lot of experience with this over the years … so having a drone strike destroy the office is much less disruptive than having a takeover of an embassy”, as happened in Tehran in 1979.

That year, 66 Americans, including diplomats, Marine guards and other personnel were taken hostage by a group of students that stormed the embassy compound during the Iranian revolution that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic.

Since the US and Israel carried out strikes on Iran on Saturday, with the US hitting what US Central Command said were more than 2000 targets, Iranian missile and attack drones have struck Kuwait, Qatar, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and other locations, including civilian targets.

Today the Pentagon released the names of four US soldiers killed in a drone attack in Kuwait. They are Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor, 39; Sergeant Declan Coady, 20; Captain Cody Khork, 35; and Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens, 42. They were each with the 103rd Sustainment Command, an Army Reserve unit with headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa.

Two additional US soldiers were killed in the same attack and recovered from wreckage later. The Pentagon is expected to release their identities later this week.

- Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.

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