U.S. Moves Embassy Staff Amid Growing Iran Confrontation

By Ahmed Rasheed, Timour Azhari and Daphne Psaledakis

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) – The United States is preparing a partial evacuation of its Iraqi embassy and will allow military dependents to leave locations around the Middle East due to heightened security risks in the region, U.S. and Iraqi sources said on Wednesday.

The four U.S. and two Iraqi sources did not specify which security risks had prompted the decision to evacuate and the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Oil prices rose on the report of the evacuation.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if stuttering talks over its nuclear program fail and on Wednesday he said he was growing less confident that Tehran would agree to stop enriching uranium, a key American demand.

Iranian Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh also said on Wednesday that Iran would retaliate against U.S. bases in the region if the nuclear talks failed and it was subjected to strikes.

The United States has a military presence in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations across the Middle East, a U.S. official said. Another U.S. official said that was mostly relevant to family members located in Bahrain — where the bulk of them are based.

“The State Department is set to have an ordered departure for (the) U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The intent is to do it through commercial means, but the U.S. military is standing by if help is requested,” a third U.S. official said.

An Iraqi foreign ministry official said a “partial evacuation” of U.S. embassy staff had been confirmed due to what the official termed “potential security concerns related to possible regional tensions.”

Another U.S. official said that there was no change in operations at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East and that no evacuation order had been issued for employees or families linked to the U.S. embassy in Qatar, which was operating as usual.

TENSIONS

Oil futures climbed $3 on reports of the Baghdad evacuation with Brent crude futures at $69.18 a barrel.

Earlier on Wednesday Britain’s maritime agency warned that increased tensions in the Middle East may lead to an escalation in military activity that could impact shipping in critical waterways. It advised vessels to use caution while traveling through the Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Straits of Hormuz, which all border Iran.

Iraq, a rare regional partner of both the United States and its arch regional foe Iran, hosts 2,500 U.S. troops and has Tehran-backed armed factions linked to its security forces.

Tensions inside Iraq have heightened since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, with Iran-aligned armed groups in the country repeatedly attacking U.S. troops.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Timour Azhari, Daphne Psaledakis and Idrees Ali, writing by Jaidaa Taha, Yomna Ehab and Angus McDowall; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Deepa Babington)

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