Saudi Arabia could run out of interceptor dumdums for its US-made Patriot air-defence system in “ months”, according to an elderly US functionary cited by the Financial Times (FT) review, egging Riyadh to appeal to indigenous abettors for help to replenish the stock.
“ It’s a critical situation,” the American functionary said, adding Washington supports the moves to reference dumdums from Gulf countries as Yemen’s Houthi revolutionists ramp up their cross-border attacks on the area.
“ There are other places in the Gulf they can get them from, and we’re trying work on that. It may be the briskly indispensable (to US arms deals),” the functionary was quoted as saying.
Two people briefed on addresses between Saudi Arabia and its neighbors verified to FT that Riyadh had made similar requests.
“ There’s an interceptor deficit. Saudi Arabia has asked its musketeers for loans, but there aren’t numerous to be had,” one of the people told the publication.
An alternate person told FT that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman suggested the issue during a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) peak in Riyadh in December and the area latterly communicated nations in the region directly.
It isn’t clear if Saudi Arabia’s neighbours have been suitable to supply it with munitions yet, the report said.
A third US functionary said the Houthi revolutionists, who are aligned to Iran and control northern Yemen, ramped up their assaults on the area last time, launching 375cross-border attacks against Saudi Arabia, numerous of which were aimed at canvas structure, airfields, and metropolises.
“ Responding to those attacks using those kinds of interceptors means that they ’re going to have a burn rate that’s faster than they may have anticipated ahead,” the functionary told FT.
“ That’s a commodity that we’ve to deal with and the answer to that isn’t only more interceptors, but the answer to that’s eventually a politic result to the extremity in Yemen.”
US-Saudi ties
The situation represents the rearmost test for US-Saudi relations, which President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to reshape in light of the October 2018 murder of Saudi iconoclastic intelligencer Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives in Istanbul.
In February last time, Biden said he’d end US support for Saudi Arabia’s “ obnoxious operations” in Yemen, including “ applicable arms deals”.
But several months latterly, his administration approved a$ 650m trade of air-to-air dumdums to the area.
