The US State Department has said it has approved Saudi Arabia\u2019s request to buy a large package of munitions and military equipment worth about $5 billion, and the case has now been sent to Congress for review. The deal will not be final until it is approved by US lawmakers.<\/p>\n
According to the published details, the package includes more than 10,000 JDAM bomb guidance kits, 10,000 general-purpose bombs, and a range of support, technical and logistical equipment. The list of items also includes bomb guidance kits in the KMU-572 and KMU-556 models, 500-pound BLU-111 bombs, 2,000-pound BLU-117 bombs, FMU-139 fuze systems and DSU-38 and DSU-40 target sensors.<\/p>\n
The US State Department said the sale would increase Saudi Arabia\u2019s air defence capacity against current and future regional threats. Washington also claims the deal will strengthen Riyadh\u2019s operational coordination with US forces and other regional partners.<\/p>\n
Boeing has been named as the prime contractor for the deal. According to US officials, some technical, engineering and support services will also be provided by American contractors.<\/p>\n
In explaining the decision, Washington described Saudi Arabia as a force for political stability and economic progress in the Gulf region, and said the sale is being carried out in line with US foreign policy and national security objectives. The announcement comes as tensions in the region remain high, with the US seeking to bolster the defence network of its Gulf allies.<\/p>\n
At the same time, a number of regional analysts said the deal was announced amid growing distrust among some traditional US partners over Washington\u2019s capabilities and commitments. They said the formation of the Mecca defence pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, as well as recent Chinese moves in the Middle East, point to increasingly complex geopolitical rivalries in the region.<\/p>\n
JDAM is a guidance system for conventional bombs that improves targeting accuracy by adding special kits. Saudi Arabia is one of the US\u2019s main security partners in the Gulf, and arms sales to the kingdom usually require review and approval by the US Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US has approved a $5 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, including JDAM kits, bombs and support equipment, pending Congress approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}