US orders staff to leave Saudi Arabia as Iran war escalates and oil prices soar by more than $100

The U.S. government ordered non-emergency civil servants to leave Saudi Arabia on Monday as the war involving Iran spread across the Middle East, pushing oil prices above $110 a barrel and causing a decline in Asian markets.

The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh cited heightened risks from armed conflict, terrorism, and missile and drone attacks from Yemen and Iran. This was the first evacuation order issued by the US government in Saudi Arabia since the war began.

The Israeli military announced on Monday that it had launched a new wave of attacks targeting the infrastructure of the “terrorist regime” in central Iran.

Attacks on several oil facilities in Iran on Sunday were followed by fires and thick smoke over Tehran and the nearby city of Karaj. The attack appears to be the first against the country’s energy infrastructure since the war began.

Oil prices soared above $110 a barrel on Monday morning after several energy producers in the Middle East announced plans to cut production.

The jump came after days of disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints. Tankers are avoiding the narrow waterway after Iran’s government threatened to attack ships attempting to pass through the strait.

The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq have announced production cuts as tanker traffic is disrupted.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that traffic in the strait would resume once the U.S. destroys Tehran’s ability to threaten shipping.

“The grace period that the market had for much of last week, assuming this situation doesn’t get out of control and start to spill over into other parts of the economy, is clearly over,” said Clayton Seagle, CSIS chair of energy and geopolitics. “The duration of the crisis will probably last even longer. Markets…are scrambling to catch up.”

Iranian authorities have appointed Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new religious and political authority in a bid to tighten control over Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and other hardliners.

Israel has previously warned that any successor to Khamenei is a potential target, while US President Donald Trump has threatened that Tehran’s new leader will be short-lived if decisions are taken without his approval.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that the selection of a new leader was “unfortunate” as Mojtaba is seen as “the successor to his father, a very hardline ideological cleric.”

Trump is also considering sending special forces to the ground to seize near-bomb-grade uranium from Tehran, as officials seek to identify the location of highly enriched material stockpiles, Bloomberg reported.

On Sunday night, shortly after the price of oil soared above $100 in the United States, President Trump posted on Truth Social that a “short-term increase in oil prices” was a “very small price” for defeating Iran’s nuclear threat. “Only a fool would think otherwise!”

Asian stocks tumbled on Monday as investors scrambled to reduce risk exposure amid fears that the fighting could last longer than expected and cause an oil supply shock to the global economy.

According to Yonhap News, South Korea has considered whether to introduce a cap on oil prices for the first time in 30 years.

Iran’s government has previously signaled its intention to ease tensions with its neighbors. In a pre-recorded video released on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian apologized for attacks on neighboring countries in the Middle East and said Iran would stop shelling countries that do not support joint US-Israeli operations against Iran.

However, Saudi Arabia announced on Sunday that Iranian attacks continued. Riyadh warned that the attack was based on “flimsy pretexts with no basis in reality” and would lead to further escalation of tensions and harm “currently and in the future.”

Iran launched a swarm of Shahid “kamikaze” drones to overwhelm air defense systems across the Gulf, citing the presence of U.S. military bases and support for U.S. military attacks in the region.

Drones have also become a staple in Russia’s arsenal over the years in its invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine has developed countermeasures to shoot them down. Drones are much cheaper than the interceptor missiles used in U.S.-supplied equipment such as the Patriot air defense system.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the New York Times that Kiev had agreed to a U.S. request to send an interceptor drone and a team of drone experts to protect U.S. military bases in Jordan.

“I have received several messages regarding how to help civilians in the Middle East, as well as how to help American soldiers deployed to certain countries,” Zelenskiy added in a post on X Sunday. “We said, ‘We’ll send experts and we’ll provide whatever it takes to protect them.'”

Other countries are also considering asking Gulf states for help containing the attack. Australia said it was considering requests for defense military assistance from Gulf states, but reiterated that it would refrain from participating in any offensive action against Iran.

Last week, China sent a special envoy to the Middle East to broker a ceasefire. China’s top diplomat Wang Yi reiterated his call for an end to Beijing’s military action at a press conference on Sunday, lamenting that the conflict was a war that “never should have happened.”