DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – The U.S. military is investigating the possibility of using a Red Sea port in Saudi Arabia and two other airports in the kingdom amid heightened tensions with Iran, the military said Tuesday.
Although the US military described the work as ‘contingency planning’, it said it had already tested cargo and land cargo from Saudi Arabia’s port in Yanbu, an important terminal for oil pipelines in the kingdom.
The use of Yanbu, as well as air bases at Tabuk and Taif along the Red Sea, would offer the U.S. military more options along a major waterway that has been increasingly attacked due to alleged mining and drone strikes by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
The announcement comes, however, because Saudi-American relations remain strained by the 2018 assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the ongoing war of the kingdom in Yemen in the first days of President Joe Biden’s government.
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The deployment of US troops – even temporarily – to base stations in the kingdom, where the Muslim holy city of Mecca resides, could provoke anger among extremists.
U.S. Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for the central commander, said the site had been under scrutiny for more than a year, caused by the September 2019 drone and missile attack in the heart of Saudi Arabia. oil industry.
FILE – In this file photo of February 20, 2020, a member of the U.S. Air Force stands near a Patriot missile battery at the Prince Sultan air base in al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / Pool via AP, File)
((Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / Pool via AP, File))
Saudi Arabia and the US blamed the attack on Iran, which temporarily halved Saudi oil production and a rise in oil prices. Tehran denied involvement in it and the Houthis claimed the assault, although the drones in question appeared to be Iranian.
“These are prudent military planning measures that allow temporary or conditional access to facilities in the event of an incident, and are in no way challenging, nor are they an extension of the U.S. footprint in the region, in general, or in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in particular, ”Urban wrote.
U.S. Navy General Frank McKenzie, the head of the U.S. Central Command, visited Yanbu on Monday. Defense One and the Wall Street Journal, who traveled to Yanbu with McKenzie, first reported on U.S. planning. Saudi officials on Tuesday did not respond to a request for comment.
Saudi Arabia has already paid for improvements on the sites and is considering it more, Urban said. Tabuk is home to King Faisal Air Base, while Taif is home to King Fahd Air Base.
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The Arab Gulf states are home to a large variety of US military bases, the legacy of the 1991 Gulf War that drove US allied forces from Kuwait, and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. America withdrew its forces from Saudi Arabia following the September 11 attacks. Osama bin Laden cited their deployment in his attacks on the US
The US Central Command already has a headquarters in Qatar. The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet operates off the island of Bahrain off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Kuwait hosts the U.S. Army’s leading headquarters, while the United Arab Emirates houses American pilots and sailors.
These places also do not include the US troop representation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Former President Donald Trump has also deployed the first troops to Saudi Arabia since 9/11 due to concerns over Iran. About 2,500 U.S. troops are now manning fighter jets and Patriot rocket batteries at the Prince Sultan air base southeast of Riyadh.
The addition of this Saudi territory appears to be part of what McKenzie previously described to the US Congress as the ‘Western Sustainment Network’, a new logistics system designed to avoid maritime shock points, said Becca Wasser, a fellow at the Washington-based center for a new U.S. security.
These locations probably would not have permanently stationed the troops and would have enabled the U.S. to deploy the troops on other bases through the flexibility, she said.
“If we try to have a flexible attitude where we are not connected to permanent bases, you will have to back it up with a logistics network that can ensure you can infiltrate people and weapons as needed,” Wasser said.
Such contingency plans already exist in the Middle East, such as the agreements that give American forces the right to use bases in Oman under certain circumstances. But the west coast of Saudi Arabia also offers extra distance from Iran, which has invested heavily in ballistic missiles, as sanctions have shut it out of world arms sales.
The Persian Gulf “would contest the waters under any scenario of armed conflict with Iran, so look at the places where your forces would move if they entered the theater from a controversial area,” McKenzie told reporters in Yanbu. .
For Iran, additional bases are likely to increase the suspicion of its theocratic government. Tensions between Iran and the US remain high after Trump unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018, leading to an increasing series of confrontations.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It remains unclear what Biden’s relationship with Saudi Arabia will be like during his presidency. During his campaign, Biden referred to the kingdom as a ‘pariah’ over the assassination of Khashoggi.
However, Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states remain the best customers for American weapons and rely on the US to ensure the free flow of oil and goods through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
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Riyadh also came under a mysterious airstrike on Saturday that condemned the U.S. State Department under Biden as an attempt to target civilians. It remains unclear whether it was a missile or a drone used in the attack.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who had earlier targeted Riyadh, denied involvement, although the Arab countries in the Gulf blamed the attack on the rebels. A previously unheard of group called the ‘True Promise Brigade’ said they carried out the attack with ‘drones of terror’, without providing evidence to substantiate the claim.