The UK expands military support for Saudi Arabia against Houthis to include ‘defensive’ air patrols

Britain an­nounced Tues­day that it is ex­pand­ing mil­i­tary sup­port for Sau­di Ara­bia against the Houthis to in­clude “de­fen­sive” air pa­trols by Roy­al Air Force jets, but stressed there is no mil­i­tary so­lu­tion to the con­flict.

De­fense Sec­re­tary Wes Street­ing said Roy­al Air Force Ty­phoon jets will “con­duct de­fen­sive counter-air op­er­a­tions over Sau­di Ara­bia, help­ing to pro­tect Sau­di cities, civil­ian pop­u­la­tions and crit­i­cal na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture” from mis­siles and drones fired by the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.

That means the British planes would at­tack mis­siles or drones in the air, but Street­ing said the British planes won’t strike Houthi tar­gets on the ground.

The U.K. will al­so send a mil­i­tary trans­port plane and an un­spec­i­fied num­ber of mil­i­tary ad­vis­ers to Sau­di Ara­bia, Street­ing said.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows Britain’s de­ci­sion last month to of­fer in-air re­fu­el­ing of Sau­di planes op­er­at­ing against the Houthis. That mis­sion is be­ing ex­tend­ed by an­oth­er 90 days, Street­ing said.

The con­flict be­tween the Houthis and Yemen’s Sau­di-backed gov­ern­ment has reignit­ed, with the Houthis aim­ing mis­sile and drone strikes at Sau­di Ara­bia, against which the oil-rich king­dom has strug­gled to de­fend it­self. The coun­try’s main in­ter­na­tion­al air­port in Riyadh was struck sev­er­al times ear­li­er this month.

Street­ing called the at­tacks “de­spi­ca­ble” and said tar­get­ing the air­port showed “the lengths the Houthis are go­ing to to es­ca­late the sit­u­a­tion in the re­gion.”

The As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­port­ed last month that Sau­di Ara­bia had asked its al­lies, in­clud­ing France, Britain, Pak­istan and Egypt to de­ploy air-de­fense sup­port to the re­gion to help de­fend against mis­siles and drones fired by Houthis and oth­er Iran-backed groups.

The U.S., which bombed the Houthis un­der the Biden and Trump ad­min­is­tra­tions, has de­clined to do the same this time around.

Street­ing said in a writ­ten state­ment to Par­lia­ment that “the gov­ern­ment re­mains clear that there is no long-term mil­i­tary so­lu­tion to the con­flict in Yemen.

“We con­tin­ue to sup­port a U.N.-led po­lit­i­cal process as the best route to a durable peace,” he said.

Yemen first plunged in­to civ­il war in 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of north­ern Yemen and forced the gov­ern­ment in­to ex­ile.

A Sau­di-led coali­tion in­ter­vened the fol­low­ing year in an at­tempt to re­store the gov­ern­ment to pow­er. The con­flict cre­at­ed one of the world’s worst hu­man­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ters, and killed more than 150,000 peo­ple.

Prime Min­is­ter Andy Burn­ham’s spokesman de­nied Britain was be­ing dragged in to the con­flict.

“Our sup­port for Sau­di Ara­bia is con­sid­ered, pro­por­tion­ate and fo­cused on help­ing them de­fend them­selves from re­lent­less Houthi at­tacks,” spokesper­son Tom Wells said. —LON­DON (AP)

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Sto­ry by JILL LAW­LESS | As­so­ci­at­ed Press