The United Kingdom will send Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets to Saudi Arabia to help shield the kingdom from missile and drone attacks launched by Yemen's Houthis, according to Al Jazeera. The British Ministry of Defence said in a statement on Tuesday that the aircraft would serve a "defensive role" and would not strike the Houthi group, which is also known as Ansar Allah and is backed by Iran.
The deployment comes as fighting intensifies between the Houthis and Yemen's internationally recognised government, which Saudi Arabia supports. Al Jazeera reports that in recent weeks the Houthis have fired missiles and sent drones at targets inside the kingdom, including oil facilities and Riyadh's main airport, while the Saudi-led coalition backing the Yemeni government has carried out air attacks on Houthi positions.
Why it matters
The decision places British combat aircraft in a conflict that has drawn in regional powers and disrupted global energy and shipping. It also deepens a defence relationship that London and Riyadh have maintained for more than a hundred years, a bond that has repeatedly put British equipment and personnel in the Gulf.
According to Al Jazeera, the Ministry of Defence also said it was extending air-to-air refuelling support, which Britain had previously agreed to provide for Saudi air operations, including missions aimed at degrading Houthi military targets in Yemen. The combination of defensive jets and refuelling assistance means the UK is widening its practical involvement even as it draws a line at offensive action.
A partnership that began in the First World War
Al Jazeera traces the relationship to December 1915, when Sir Percy Cox, a senior British official in the Gulf, concluded the Treaty of Darin with King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, then ruler of Nejd in central Arabia. The records, held by the UK's National Archives, show that under the agreement he allied with Britain against the Ottoman Empire and received British money and weapons in return. The pact predates the founding of the Saudi kingdom itself.
A further treaty was signed with him at Jeddah in May 1927, according to an India Office memorandum cited by Al Jazeera.
Military sales followed decades later. In May 1966, Saudi Arabia signed contracts to buy 40 Lightning fighter jets and 25 jet trainers from the British Aircraft Corporation, together with a radar system, according to a US State Department memo from the period.
That deal landed in the middle of the civil war in Yemen. In 1962, a military coup overthrew the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen and established the Yemen Arab Republic. Egypt sent troops to support the republican government, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan armed and funded royalist forces seeking to restore the Imam. By 1966 the war had reached a stalemate.
Britain was meanwhile confronting a rebellion over its control of Aden and southern Yemen, mounted by nationalist groups backed by the Soviet Union and Egypt. Britain withdrew in 1967.
In 1966, Saudi Arabia's defence minister, Prince Sultan, asked the UK to supply an RAF fighter squadron that would fly under Saudi colours if fighting resumed in Yemen, according to declassified US State Department records. Britain instead offered fighter jets flown by British pilots and said it was prepared to send an RAF squadron of Lightning interceptors for a short period if needed. In the end, Saudi Arabia accepted the aircraft and civilian pilots, and the RAF squadron was not required.
Al-Yamamah, the Gulf War and the Typhoon era
BAE Systems, formerly the British Aircraft Corporation, says its ties with Saudi Arabia date back to 1966. In 1973 the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding naming the company as prime contractor, Al Jazeera reports.
In 1985 the governments signed an oil-for-arms agreement known as Al-Yamamah covering Tornado and Hawk jets. Reuters has described the Al-Yamamah deals as the largest export contracts in British history. Saudi Arabia set aside up to 600,000 barrels of oil a day to pay for Tornado jets and other equipment.
The UK's Serious Fraud Office began investigating corruption allegations linked to the deal in 2004 but dropped the inquiry in December 2006, according to a House of Lords judgement. The attorney general at the time, Lord Goldsmith, cited the need to protect national security.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia asked friendly governments for assistance. On August 11, twelve RAF Tornado fighters flew from Akrotiri in Cyprus to Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, according to the RAF Museum. More RAF Tornado detachments were established at Tabuk in October 1990 and at Dhahran in January 1991.
During the war, then-Defence Secretary Tom King told Parliament that Saudi Arabia had given the UK host-nation support. He also reported that a Tornado based in the kingdom had gone missing, the fourth lost to enemy action.
British aircraft later patrolled a no-fly zone over southern Iraq alongside American and French jets, operating from Saudi bases until 2003, according to the US Air Force.
In September 2007, Saudi Arabia agreed to buy 72 Typhoons from Britain, the UK Ministry of Defence said at the time. The jets were intended to replace Tornadoes and other aircraft in the Saudi air force. In March 2018, during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to London, the UK signed a memorandum of intent with Saudi Arabia to finalise the purchase of 48 more Typhoons, BAE Systems said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
The Typhoon, a twin-engine multirole fighter, is the same aircraft type now being committed to the kingdom's air defence, tying the newest deployment to a procurement line that has run for nearly two decades.
What to watch
Attention now turns to how the Houthis respond to the expanded British presence and whether the defensive mandate holds if attacks on Saudi infrastructure continue.
