Iran has “substantially increased efforts to target US personnel” in the Middle East and other areas, the US national intelligence director has warned in a memo seen by the BBC.
Jay Clayton’s assessment come as the US State Department makes adjustments to staffing at diplomatic posts in the region, including the ordered departure earlier this week of non-emergency US embassy staff from Saudi Arabia.
The order came in response to escalating attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis against Saudi Arabia in the past month.
Clayton’s memo was marked unclassified and sent to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday.
It said: “The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against US citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries.”
Clayton said he was making every effort to downgrade as much intelligence as possible so Rubio could share it with US State Department personnel.
A US official told the BBC: “When it comes to our staffing at embassies, we constantly evaluate new information about the security environment.
“The threat of Houthi attacks and of Iranian terror plots targeting US officials are informing our decisions on staffing adjustments for embassies on [Restricted Operations] Status in the region.”
At least 21 people have now been killed in Houthi attacks on Saudi airports since the start of October, according to Saudi authorities.
One missile strike on Riyadh’s international airport on 10 October killed 13 people and injured 308 others – the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.
The Houthis say the attacks on Saudi Arabia are in retaliation to what they call a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in their territory, as well as an air strike on Sanaa airport they blame on the kingdom.
Yemen has been devastated by a civil war that began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa. The conflict escalated in 2015, after the Saudi-led coalition intervened in an attempt to restore the government’s rule.
A four-year-old informal ceasefire began to unravel in July, when the Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks. Some 155 civilians have been killed in Yemen since, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.
This particular conflict has re-emerged on the backdrop of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
The US and Israel launched an air campaign against Iran in February, killing its leader and prompting the regime in Tehran to retaliate with strikes on US allies across the region and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas usually travels.
In June, the US and Iran reached a preliminary agreement to end the war and reopen the strait, but it collapsed within weeks after the Iranian attacks on shipping resumed and the US reinstated its blockade.
The situation in the Strait of Hormuz has seen oil prices surge, exacerbated by the Houthis’ “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia.
