Saudi Arabia goes to neighbors for missile loans pending US arms deal
Saudi Arabia is facing a thorny arms sale approval process with the United States after being accused of multiple crimes.
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US State Department approved selling $650 million worth of arms to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has asked its neighbors for interceptor missile loans as it struggles to repel advances by the Yemeni Army and Popular Committees, according to media reports on Sunday.
The Gulf monarchy gets the majority of its weapons from the US, but its involvement in the Yemeni war and the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, in 2018 drew bipartisan condemnation in the US, resulting in a difficult approval process.
"There is an interceptor shortage. Saudi Arabia has asked its friends for loans, but there are not many to be had," the Financial Times quoted a source with the knowledge of talks between Riyadh and its neighbors as saying.
According to a senior US source, Washington approved of these negotiations, which they described as "the faster alternative" to obtaining interceptors directly from the US.
Since sending warplanes to bomb the Yemeni Armed Forces positions as a backup for Al-Hadi forces, Saudi Arabia has been subjected to relentless drone and rocket attacks by the Yemeni forces in neighboring Yemen.
US Senate against banning arms sale
The US Senate "strongly rejects" banning the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, which continues to aggress against Yemen.
After the US State Department approved to sell $650 million worth of arms to Saudi Arabia in December 2020 - which is the first major arms sale to Riyadh - Republican members of the House of Representatives Rand Paul and Mike Lee, as well as independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who is close to the Democrats, issued a bill to block the sales last month. However, the US Senate rejected the resolution.
The rejected Resolution 31 stipulated banning the sales of 280 advanced medium range-air-to-air missiles manufactured by war-corporate giant Raytheon.
This came after three members of the US Senate announced that a group of members oppose the first major arms deal to Saudi Arabia during President Joe Biden's administration, due to the Kingdom's participation in the Yemen war.
