Global Express | October 22, 2026: Two Killed at Saudi Arabia's Dammam Airport as U.S. Orders Diplomats Out

1. Two Killed in Attack on Saudi Arabia's Dammam Airport

Source: Al Jazeera

Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement on Thursday that the number of people killed in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in the eastern city of Dammam had risen to two, a Saudi national and an Indian resident. The authority said the attack took place on Wednesday and left eight people wounded, and that all injured individuals were immediately transported to hospitals.

Earlier in the day, two people were killed after Saudi air defences intercepted a drone that was attempting to hit a facility at Saudi Aramco's Shaybah oilfield, the Ministry of Energy said. It was the latest in a series of assaults on Saudi infrastructure as conflict intensifies between Houthi forces and the Saudi-backed internationally recognised Yemeni government.

Last week the kingdom reported that a projectile strike on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport on Oct. 11 killed one person and injured 11. On Oct. 10, the civil aviation authority reported that a separate attack on the same airport killed 12 people and injured more than 300. On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department ordered diplomats and family members to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia amid the ongoing Houthi attacks, and U.S. officials told Reuters there are plans to withdraw family members from a number of other U.S. missions in the region.

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2. U.S. and Israel Said to Have Plans for New Strikes on Iran After Midterms

Source: CNBC

The U.S. ordered non-emergency government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia as Houthi attacks on the kingdom escalate. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a post on X that the order applies only to Saudi Arabia, citing increasing attacks by Iran-aligned Houthis on civilian targets. Reuters reported that Washington also plans to withdraw family members from other missions in the region.

The U.S. and Israeli militaries have drawn up specific plans for renewed strikes on Iran after next month's midterm elections, according to The New York Times, citing unnamed U.S. officials. Planning for a "short but intensive" operation is progressing, the newspaper said. Likely targets would include Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile and drone arsenal, according to the Times, which noted that President Donald Trump has yet to approve the fresh strikes and has repeatedly vetoed plans for a return to major combat this year.

The Times also reported that the two militaries have stepped up exercises, including flying planes over Iraq to practise strike manoeuvres, and that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an unannounced visit to Israel this week. Iranian officials have vowed to widen their attacks to target data centers and undersea internet cables while refusing concessions on their nuclear program. Middle East oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz have recovered to near pre-war levels, according to Kpler.

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3. Russian Missiles and Drones Pound Kyiv Overnight, Killing One and Injuring 24

Source: Kyiv Post

Russian forces launched successive waves of ballistic missiles and attack drones against Kyiv overnight into Thursday, Oct. 22, killing one person and injuring at least 24 others, including four children, and damaging a metro bridge, an ambulance station, homes and businesses.

The Kyiv City Military Administration said in a statement at 9:21 a.m. that 24 people had been injured, 16 of whom were hospitalized. The State Emergency Service had reported at 7:55 a.m. that one person was killed and 22 others injured, including four children. Mayor Vitali Klitschko initially said the number of injured had risen from six to 15, including two 15-year-olds.

The State Emergency Service said Russian forces launched ballistic missile strikes on six districts of Kyiv starting on the evening of Oct. 21. In Dniprovskyi district one person was killed, a child was hospitalized and five others were injured; in Pecherskyi district buildings, ambulances and a monastery were damaged and eight people were injured, including three children; in Sviatoshynskyi district a fire that covered 1,100 square meters was extinguished; six people were injured in Holosiivskyi district. The bombardment also damaged metro infrastructure on Kyiv's South Bridge, prompting traffic restrictions on the crossing over the Dnipro River, and damaged an ambulance station and six emergency medical vehicles.

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4. Ukrainian Troops Move 15 Kilometers Through Gas Pipelines Into Russian Rear

Source: The Kyiv Independent

Ukrainian troops infiltrated the rear of Russian forces near Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast after moving about 15 kilometers through underground gas pipelines, Ukraine's National Guard's 2nd Khartiia Corps said on Oct. 22. The operation, code-named "Veles," was carried out by the 2nd Khartiia Corps together with other Ukrainian units.

Khartiia commander Brig. Gen. Ihor Obolienskyi said Ukrainian forces had studied how Russian troops were using underground routes and anticipated that they would try to exploit major gas pipelines running through Kharkiv Oblast. "The Russians intended to use the gas routes to penetrate the rear of our forces. So we went underground ourselves," Obolienskyi said. According to Khartiia, Ukrainian troops moved through the pipelines before combining the underground advance with operations above ground, including drone strikes.

The corps said more than 30 Russian soldiers were captured during the operation and that Russian forces suffered more than 100 casualties; The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify those figures. In January, Ukrainian troops said they had stopped a Russian assault involving about 50 soldiers attempting to advance through the Soyuz gas pipeline. Khartiia also said retreating Russian troops near Kupiansk recently used civilians as human shields, forcing a group that included children and elderly people into the Shebelinka-Ostrogozhsk pipeline, and that Ukrainian troops did not open fire because civilians were present.

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5. China's CSI 300 Slips Into Bear Market, Down 20% From June Peak

Source: CNBC

China's benchmark CSI 300 index on Thursday entered bear-market territory, falling 20% from its June peak as a prolonged sell-off in its equities deepens. The index, which tracks 300 of the largest stocks listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen, has declined for 10 consecutive weeks and is down 2.6% so far this week, data from LSEG showed. It was more than 1% lower on Thursday.

Jordan Cvetanovski, chairman and CIO at Pella Funds, said China's equity market continues to face structural challenges, particularly as the world's second-largest economy grapples with the fallout from years of excess capacity and overinvestment. He pointed to challenges facing companies even in globally competitive industries such as batteries. China posted its weakest growth in industrial profits this year in September, and its slowest growth in over three years in the second quarter.

Shaun Rein, managing director at China Market Research Group, expects further selling pressure as geopolitical uncertainty, concerns over an artificial intelligence bubble and deteriorating consumer confidence weigh on investor sentiment. He noted that retail investors drive 90% of daily trading in China, compared with about 20%-25% of trade volumes on the New York Stock Exchange. Still, he said the sell-off has been excessive: "It's a crisis of confidence right now not a crisis in the economy," he said, predicting a strong rebound in Chinese equities in 2027.

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6. U.S. Stock Futures Fall as Oil Jumps More Than 2%

Source: CNBC

U.S. equity futures slid on Thursday, bogged down by declines in mega-cap names Meta Platforms and Tesla along with a jump in oil prices as geopolitical tensions rise. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 356 points, or 0.7%. S&P 500 futures fell 1%, and Nasdaq-100 futures dropped 1.7%. Tesla shares dropped more than 3%, while Meta slipped nearly 2%, even though both companies beat estimates in their third-quarter results.

Technology more broadly was under pressure. Advanced Micro Devices fell more than 4%, while Micron Technology and Nvidia dropped 3% and 2%, respectively, and neocloud CoreWeave declined nearly 4%. JPMorgan traders noted that Wednesday's bullish tone reversed overnight and that chatter increased over renewed Iran kinetic risk after the U.S. midterm elections.

Oil prices jumped after The New York Times reported, citing sources, that the U.S. and Israel have plans for renewed strikes against Iran following next month's midterm elections. Brent crude traded 2.7% higher at $111.77 per barrel, while WTI advanced 2% to $99.25. Investors also turned to U.S. Treasurys, with the 10-year note yield dropping 7 basis points to 5.069% and the 2-year yield shedding 6 basis points to 4.761%. Europe's Stoxx 600 was down 1%, France's CAC 40 fell 1.34%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was down more than 2%.

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7. Hackers Exploited PHP Flaws Four Days Before Patches Were Released

Source: WIRED

Wednesday's release of fixes for two critical vulnerabilities in PHP, a widely used web scripting language, caused administrators and security staff to race to identify and patch vulnerable websites and apps, while some governments and other groups proactively took key websites down so they would not be targeted before patches could be applied. But research published Wednesday evening by Amazon Web Services indicates that at least one actor had started attempting to exploit the bugs, known collectively as PHP2Shell, on Oct. 17, four days before the public disclosure.

CJ Moses, AWS's chief information security officer, said analysts spotted the Oct. 17 exploitation while looking back at activity on one of their honeypots, and that the attempt came from an IP address linked to a "commercial anonymization network." "While the vulnerability was under embargo, the targeting of a honeypot from an anonymized IP address suggests the activity was conducted by a threat actor, though it remains unclear how the actor acquired exploit information prior to disclosure," he wrote.

Proof-of-concept exploits began emerging publicly on Wednesday, with some seeming to appear hours before the 10 a.m. ET disclosure. AWS said its honeypots were hit with multiple exploitation attempts anonymized using various providers and seemingly with various attack goals, likely indicating multiple different actors. "PHP2Shell is now being broadly exploited in the wild," Moses wrote, adding that AI-assisted analysis makes it cheaper to turn a patch diff or advisory into a working exploit.

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8. Congo's Ebola Outbreak Rebounds and Spreads Across Africa

Source: Xinhua / The Beijing News

A report released by the World Health Organization's regional office for Africa on Oct. 21 showed that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has rebounded, with the number of new confirmed cases rising again, while the outbreak has spread to other African countries. Since the outbreak was declared in May, daily new cases climbed, peaked in late July and mid-August, dipped in late September and rebounded in early October.

As of Oct. 19, Congo had reported 9,637 confirmed cases, including 4,646 deaths, with the outbreak affecting eight of the country's 26 provinces. WHO said the outbreak remains at a "critical stage," spreading both within Congo and across borders, while deteriorating security, displacement and blocked humanitarian access continue to hamper the response.

Kenya has reported nine confirmed cases in total, with the eight new cases all epidemiologically linked to the first imported case and all isolated when symptoms appeared. Nigeria confirmed its first Ebola case on Oct. 20 in a woman who entered from Uganda earlier this month; WHO warned that the long interval between the onset of illness and diagnosis could mean undetected exposure and onward transmission. Africa CDC said on Oct. 21 that the outbreak has spread to central, eastern and western Africa and that it will hold a high-level video meeting of African health ministers on Oct. 28.

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9. Bukele Threatens Haiti's Gangs After Soldiers Abducted

Source: Al Jazeera

El Salvador has initiated a military operation to rescue four Salvadoran soldiers abducted by gangs in Haiti, President Nayib Bukele announced in a post on X. In Wednesday's statement, Bukele warned that a more forceful response was coming if the personnel were not released alive and well. "Do not take our word for empty threats," he wrote. "We have already finished with the gangs in El Salvador, and we can finish with you too."

The four men are aviation technicians with the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force. Gangs opened fire on an armoured vehicle carrying them three days earlier, in the first major attack since the international force began operating in Haiti last year. The men have been missing since they fled the burning vehicle in the Santo area of Croix-des-Bouquets, Port-au-Prince. Haiti's government said in a news release on Wednesday evening that the release of the abducted soldiers was an "absolute priority," and that a meeting was held at the prime minister's office to assess operations.

The UN-backed force is still fighting gangs in the community where the attack occurred and has warned residents to remain indoors. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes as Haiti prepares for its first general election in more than a decade; gangs control an estimated 70% of the capital. El Salvador is among several countries, including Chad, Jamaica and Guatemala, contributing to the force, which has more than 2,000 troops on the ground.

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10. South Korea's Defense Ministry Says North Korea Must Return to Dialogue

Source: Xinhua

South Korea's Defense Ministry said on Oct. 22 that North Korea must return to the dialogue table to prevent an accidental conflict between the two Koreas caused by differing perceptions. Ministry spokesperson Jung Bin-na made the remarks at a regular briefing when asked about the possibility that the two sides could resume loudspeaker broadcasts, raising the risk of miscalculation or accidental conflict.

Jung said military communication channels between the two Koreas are completely cut off, and that the fact both sides convey their positions through statements illustrates that reality. She said North Korea must return to the dialogue table to avoid an accidental conflict and that actions that could trigger such a situation must stop. North Korea's KCNA reported on Oct. 21 that Kim Yo-jong, a department director of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee, said psychological warfare loudspeakers would be put into full operation along the border this month, and claimed the South conducted loudspeaker broadcasts and warning shots at at least two locations on Oct. 21.

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