The United Kingdom is set to send RAF Typhoon fighter jets to defend cities and national infrastructure in Saudi Arabia amid attacks by Iran-backed Houthi militants, the U.K. government said Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia — an oil-producing giant in the Persian Gulf — has in recent weeks been targeted by missiles and drones sent by the militia group that is waging an offensive in the shadow of the Iran war, seizing key territory from Saudi-backed forces in Yemen along the Red Sea and hitting high-level targets within Saudi Arabia.
An attack on its international airport in Riyadh on Oct. 10 killed 13 people, and Houthi strikes on oil infrastructure across the country have sent global energy markets reeling, with the price of a barrel of Brent crude at $110.
The British government said that it would fly “defensive counter air missions” in addition to using a Royal Air Force A400M to “support the movement of defense material within Saudi Arabia alongside U.K. military advisers to support Saudi staff officers.”
“The continuing attacks from the Houthis on our ally Saudi Arabia are absolutely despicable,” Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said in a statement. “The targeting of the airport in Riyadh in particular shows the lengths the Houthis are going to escalate the situation in the region.”
The announcement comes as Saudi Arabia confronts the limits of its relationship with President Donald Trump, who has long called Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a friend and ally but provided only limited military involvement, as the U.S. focus remains bound up in the broader conflict with Iran.
Ali Shihabi, a Saudi author and commentator who is familiar with government thinking, said that there was “a certain amount of frustration” in Riyadh that the U.S. is not providing help via American military aircraft.
“But there is also appreciation,” he said, “for the help that the Americans are providing in terms of intelligence and people on the ground.”
Already, Britain has deployed air defense equipment to protect against missiles and drone attacks, the Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that the “Houthis’ attempts to destabilize the region and undermine the security and stability of the Middle East are unacceptable”
“This reckless behaviour deepens Yemen’s already devastating humanitarian crisis, and it is in the U.K.’s national economic and security interest that they do not succeed,” the statement read, noting that escalating violence in the Gulf has serious costs at home — including on cost of living and energy supplies.
Saudi Arabia has been looking to any corner for assistance as Houthi attacks ramp up. Pakistan and Turkey, under a defense agreement inked in August, have been providing assistance, which they say is purely defensive in nature.
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