Image caption, Dammam is the largest city in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province Two people were killed and eight others injured in an attack on an airport in Dammam, eastern Saudi Arabia on Wednesday evening, the kingdom's General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) says. Those killed at King Fahd International Airport were a Saudi citizen and an Indian resident, while the injured were Saudi, Indian, Yemeni, Bangladeshi and Nepalese nationals. The GACA did not say what type of attack occurred, but Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement has repeatedly targeted the kingdom's airports with drones and missiles. On Wednesday morning, two people were killed by debris from a drone that was intercepted over Eastern Province, where Dammam is located, the Saudi energy ministry said. The ministry said the drone was intercepted as it attempted to target a processing facility owned by Saudi Arabia's state oil company Aramco in the Shaybeh oil field, where a contractor's vehicle was set ablaze.

Deadly attacks in the kingdom, including against Saudi Aramco facilities, have heightened concerns that escalating Middle East hostilities could hit oil supplies. Oil advanced after deadly attacks in Saudi Arabia heightened concerns that escalating Middle East hostilities could hit supplies, even as exports through the Strait of Hormuz accelerate. Brent rose to trade near $110 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate was around $98. A drone strike on Saudi Aramco's Shaybah field killed two people but left operations unaffected, while an attack on the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, killed one. The U.S. also ordered the departure of some personnel and family members from American diplomatic facilities in the kingdom. Global benchmark Brent has surged about 80% this year after flows from the Persian Gulf were disrupted by the U.S.-Iran war, which is approaching its ninth month with little sign of a resolution.

A judge ordered Abdulrahman Alfozan to remain in custody, likening the Saudi government's offer to secure the former OpenAI engineer's release to a "blank check." The former OpenAI engineer accused of bugging a company conference room must stay in custody while he awaits trial, a federal judge ruled on Monday after expressing concerns about his ties to Saudi Arabia. US prosecutors alleged Abdulrahman Alfozan is a flight risk because the Saudi Arabian government has offered to support him with no strings attached. They cited, for example, the Saudi consulate's offer to work with a bail bonds firm to help fund Alfozan's release. Federal magistrate judge Alex Tse questioned whether Alfozan is an "asset" for the kingdom and how a bond backed by the government could keep him in the country.

An ex-OpenAI engineer accused of planting a recording device in an executive conference room at the AI company appears to have received considerable support from the Saudi government, United States prosecutors have said in a court filing. Federal prosecutors allege that the defendant, Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, was in frequent communication with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family and that a Saudi military official paid for a one-way plane ticket for Alfozan's wife and young son to return to Saudi Arabia after his arrest, according to the court document, made public late on Sunday. Alfozan, a Saudi national and lawful permanent resident in the US, is scheduled to appear in federal court in San Francisco later on Monday. The case has highlighted security challenges around sensitive AI research as companies and governments compete fiercely for an edge in the transformational technology. "The defendant went to significant lengths to create customized, encrypted recording devices to secretly record highly sensitive meetings involving senior OpenAI personnel and executives, high-level business counterparts, and government officials, all while communicating with individuals of significance in Saudi Arabia and pursuing opportunities in -- and making plans to travel to -- Saudi Arabia," prosecutors wrote in a detention memo.

A Saudi national charged with secretly planting a recording device in one of OpenAI's meeting rooms has been accused of having considerable support from the Saudi government, according to a court filing, external in California. US prosecutors claimed Abdulrahman Alfozan, who worked for the AI firm, was in frequent communication... with a member of the Saudi royal family, and say a member of the country's military paid for a one-way flight to Saudi Arabia for his wife and son after his arrest. It was argued the 35-year-old engineer therefore posed a flight risk and should be detained, pending trial. The Saudi government did not immediately respond to BBC requests for comment. Alfozan had worked at OpenAI for around a year before he allegedly made his attempt to plant an audio recorder.

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Sen. Chris Murphy met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, pushing for an end to the war with Iran and a pathway to a Palestinian state during a Middle East trip.

Yemen's government announces all-out war to reclaim land from Houthis The head of Yemen's internationally recognised government has announced it will wage an all out war in an effort to take all territory held by the Houthis. It follows an exchange of strikes between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition in recent days. The Iran-backed group said it had struck sites belonging to Saudi national oil company Aramco, in response to what it described as 50 Saudi-led coalition strikes in 12 hours. Saudi Arabia has yet to comment. The Yemeni government's fierce statement was expected after the Houthis' offensive last month, which saw them seize control of the country's coastline, including the vital shipping lane of the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Did Iran capture a US submarine? Saudi Arabia's oil exports took another blow last week when drone attacks knocked out part of the country's East-West pipeline, halting oil flow and removing 4-5 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil from global supply. It is unclear how long repairs will take, although The Associated Press estimates three to five weeks, citing two regional officials. The 1,200km (746-mile) pipeline connects the kingdom's main oil-producing fields in the east of the country with Yanbu port on the Red Sea coast in the west, allowing Saudi crude to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which has largely remained closed since the United States-Israel war on Iran began on February 28. As the world's second-largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia's ability to keep crude flowing has significant consequences for global energy markets.

Donald Trump's son-in-law represents the kind of Washington figure for whom public office serves as a means to extraordinary wealth. "Kushner is plagued with conflicts of interest," Virginia Canter, a former White House counsel, said. "He is supposed to be working for the American people, but in fact he has tremendous financial incentives to further the interests of his investors." In the waning hours before the U.S. went to war with Iran, this February, Jared Kushner held a meeting with Iranian negotiators in Geneva--one last chance to avoid a conflict that would plunge the region into chaos and shock the world economy. Afterward, Kushner dismissed his counterparts as unworthy of his time. "Lots of tricks," he told reporters. Kushner, the boyish-looking son-in-law of Donald Trump, has been given an extraordinary brief in recent years. Along with Steve Witkoff, the President's special envoy, he has been charged with ending wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and just about anywhere else they might break out. Kushner, who is forty-five, has little regard for the craft of diplomacy. In his view, it is less important to know a region's history or the details of the partisans' negotiating positions than to simply hear the sides out and split the difference. Peace deals are like real-estate deals, he has said. Both involve hard bargaining and, at times, bluffing. The fact that so many diplomats before him have struggled is a testament not to the intransigence of international problems but to the mediocrity of his predecessors. "I've been getting criticized for the last couple of years, by all the people who have tried and failed, for not doing this the same way that they have," he said in 2020, after Trump unveiled his first Middle East peace plan. "If somebody was successful, I wouldn't be dealing with this." When Kushner and Witkoff began meeting with the Iranian negotiators, in February, the two countries were on the brink of war. In 2025, American and Israeli forces had bombed Iran's nuclear-enrichment facilities, which Western leaders said were engaged in a decades-long drive to develop a nuclear weapon. Afterward, Trump declared that Iran's capability to enrich uranium had been "obliterated." Yet Trump and other Western officials wanted further concessions. The Iranians maintained a large stockpile of lower-grade uranium. It was buried under rubble from the bombing in 2025, but Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, insisted that the Iranians give it up and forswear any intention of enriching uranium in the future. Trump sent Kushner and Witkoff to present the Iranians with what amounted to a binary choice: turn over their entire stockpile or expect an attack. To emphasize his threats, he had dispatched an armada to the Middle East. "We have to have a meaningful deal, otherwise bad things happen," he said.