US Urges Citizens to Leave Middle East Amid Iran War
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- US embassies in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE warned Americans to 'consider departing,' citing risk of 'unforeseen escalation,' possible flight cancellations, and airspace closures
- The alerts came a day after President Trump threatened to hit Iran 'very hard,' and follow the collapse of a ceasefire in the US-Iran war that began on Feb. 28 and has since resumed strikes
- Iran's military warned that any country serving as a 'defensive shield' for the US 'will be engulfed by the flames of war,' while an adviser to Iran's supreme leader said attacking Iranian infrastructure would 'awaken the fault lines on which 250 years of your hegemonic architecture have been built'
- US citizens in Jordan were told to avoid military bases recently struck by Iranian missiles, and those in Israel were urged to locate the nearest bomb shelter
- An unidentified drone struck a US-owned gas vessel moored in an Egyptian port on Wednesday, and an 'unknown projectile' hit a tanker off Oman's coast as Iran enforces transit fees and permission requirements on vessels using the Strait of Hormuz
- Maritime tracking firm Kpler said traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has dropped 'sharply,' while Houthi rebels denied seeking to charge ships for passage through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Israel's military said it killed three Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon
- The US Embassy in Beirut remains on 'ordered departure status,' with family members and non-essential government personnel still relocated outside Lebanon
Why it matters: The simultaneous alerts across 11 embassies indicate the State Department views escalation as imminent, not hypothetical — particularly after Iran explicitly threatened that any country serving as a 'defensive shield' for the US 'will be engulfed by the flames of war,' placing Gulf states hosting American bases squarely in Tehran's crosshairs. On the energy side, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has already dropped 'sharply' per Kpler, and Iran now charges transit fees for passage, squeezing supply chains the wider world depends on.
