Days after an Iranian strike on a Saudi air base injured 12 American troops, the Saudi government has yet to acknowledge the attack.
Its silence underscores the fraught position that Saudi Arabia has found itself in during the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. A close U.S. ally and regional rival of Iran, the kingdom has faced hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks since the war began. Most were intercepted, but some killed civilians and damaged oil installations.
Last week, President Trump told reporters that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia is “fighting with us.”
Yet Saudi leadership has stopped short of participating in or publicly endorsing the war effort.
Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor at Kuwait University, said the tension between Mr. Trump’s remarks and Saudi official statements highlighted how Gulf governments had been stretched in multiple directions by this war.
“The Gulf states are fighting on various fronts: defending against daily, misguided Iranian attacks and an Israeli-U.S. narrative trying hard to portray the Gulf on their side in the war,” he said. “We’ve been stating our position loud and clear.” But neither Iran, Israel or the United States “is listening,” he added.
Officially, the Saudi government — along with leaders of most Gulf countries — has said that it is not allowing its territory or airspace to be used for American attacks against Iran. That is partly because Saudi officials fear that doing so would attract even more Iranian attacks.
But it is also because the idea of hosting American soldiers in the kingdom — particularly as part of a joint U.S.-Israeli offensive — is deeply controversial among Saudi citizens.
In the 1990s, the arrival of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait unleashed a wave of dissent that was later suppressed.
Today, Saudi pundits often declare that there are no U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, unlike in neighboring countries. There is, however, a significant U.S. military presence in the kingdom, particularly at the base that came under attack on Friday — Prince Sultan Air Base, southeast of the capital, Riyadh.
The monthlong Iran war has drawn uncomfortable attention to that fact, as the base has faced repeated attacks.
During the recent missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, at least two KC-135 aerial refueling planes suffered significant damage, and 12 U.S. troops were injured, according to two U.S. officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The officials disclosed that attack on Friday, although it is unclear when exactly it occurred.
The Saudi Ministry of Defense has shared many statements about attacks over the past few days, but none of them appeared to refer to the attack on the air base.
On Friday, the ministry said that it had intercepted three drones, and that fragments had fallen “in a military area.” But it said the attack had not caused any injuries.
Saudi dissidents seized on this as an apparent inconsistency.
“There is no transparency with the world — or credibility with citizens,” Abdullah Alaoudh, a member of a Saudi opposition group in exile, wrote on social media. “Our national security is being endangered by foreign military bases.”
It is not entirely clear what stance Prince Mohammed — the de facto Saudi ruler — has taken toward the rapidly evolving war.
People briefed by American officials told The New York Times that the prince had been pressing Mr. Trump to keep up the war against Iran, arguing that it presented a “historic opportunity” to remake the Middle East.
And earlier this month, the Saudi foreign minister warned that his government had limited patience with Iran and reserved the right “to take military actions if deemed necessary.”
But Saudi officials have rejected the idea that Prince Mohammed has pushed to prolong the war.
“Saudi Arabia has always supported a peaceful resolution to this conflict, even before it began,” the Saudi government said in a statement last week.
Mr. Trump has brushed past those denials. On Friday, speaking as a guest of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund at a conference in Miami, he reiterated the claim that the Gulf states were fighting with the United States.
“Saudi Arabia fought, Qatar fought, U.A.E. fought, Bahrain fought and Kuwait fought,” he said.
The Saudi government’s Center for International Communication did not respond to requests for comment on Mr. Trump’s remarks, or on the attack that injured U.S. troops.
Vivian Nereim is the lead reporter for The Times covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. She is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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