SAUDI KING APPROVES RETURN OF US TROOPS
▶ Move comes amid rising tension between America and Iran in the Gulf
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Al Saud has backed the stationing of US troops in the country to boost stability and security in the Middle East.
Troops and other resources would be sent to the kingdom to “provide an additional deterrent” in light of “emergent, credible threats,” the US Defence Department said in a statement shared by Saudi Press Agency on Friday.
The move comes amid rising tension between Washington and Tehran in the Gulf that has affected global oil markets.
On Friday, Iran said it had seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz but denied Washington’s assertion that the US Navy had downed an Iranian drone nearby this week.
Washington and Riyadh have a strong relationship, one built on trade and security affairs.
US President Donald Trump made Riyadh his first port of call for a foreign state visit, on which he held a summit on counterterrorism.
The decision to host US forces was made “to increase joint co-operation in defence of regional security and stability and to preserve its peace,” SPA said, quoting a Ministry of Defence representative.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the deployment would include about 500 military personnel in Saudi Arabia and is part of an increase in the number of American troops in the Middle East that the US Department of Defence announced last month. In June, the Pentagon said it would send 1,000 troops to the Middle East but did not say where they would go.
Relations between Washington and Tehran worsened last year when Mr Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran.
Under the pact, Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work, long seen by the West as a cover for developing nuclear weapons, in return for lifting sanctions. But the sanctions have since been reimposed, badly hurting Iran’s economy.
Mr Trump has said he considers Saudi Arabia an important partner in the Middle East and counterweight to the malign influence of Iran.
Putting US combat forces back in Saudi Arabia, after an absence of more than a decade, adds depth to the regional alignment of US military power, which is mostly in locations on the Arabian Gulf that are especially vulnerable to Iranian missile attack.
Starting with the January 1991 air war against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait the previous summer, the US flew a wide variety of aircraft from Prince Sultan airbase.
US forces there flew and maintained fighters and other warplanes. The base also served as a launch pad for the December 1998 bombing of Iraq, which focused on sites believed to be associated with the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.
In 2001, the base became home to the US military’s Combined Air Operations Centre, which orchestrated the air war in Afghanistan.