Saudi Arabia 'dodging' $15 million payment to US for Yemen campaign support

Saudi Arabia has yet to settle a $15 million bill for US assistance in its air campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, continuing to delay the payment even as defence contracts between the two nations remain active, a report has shown.

The support, which was provided to Saudi and UAE forces between March 2015 and November 2018, cost the US $300 million - a large part of which had already been settled but some of the bill still remains unpaid.

The costs are mostly due to refuelling operations that enabled the Saudi and Emirati air forces to carry out their years-long air campaign against the Houthis in support of the internationally-recognised Yemeni government.

Documents obtained by The Intercept show that US military officials raised the $15 million bill with Saudi counterparts from 2022 onwards.

The documents noted that although acknowledging the outstanding debt during a meeting in March 2022, the Saudis did not meet their indicated deadline of payment in December.

A subsequent meeting held over a year later saw Saudi military officials deny any knowledge of the debt which, according to the document, remains unpaid.

The Intercept noted that the Pentagon has yet to respond to its repeated questions about the bill.

For the past three years, the US has banned the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia over the scale of civilian casualties caused by its bombing campaign in Yemen.

Some 18,000 civilians are thought to have been killed and wounded in the Saudi-led intervention, which has quietened following a 2022 truce that spurred on peace talks between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, as well as Saudi Arabia.

On Monday the US confirmed it would lift the ban on the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, citing Saudi truce efforts in Yemen.

In recent years, Riyadh has become a cornerstone of US policy in the Middle East, with the Biden administration attempting to sponsor a normalisation of relations between the Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The effort has largely ceased since the start of Israel's war on Gaza, with Saudi Arabia reiterating that any normalisation can only occur alongside the formation of an independent Palestinian state.

In April, Saudi Arabia reportedly assisted the US and Israel in shooting down a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones that were fired by Tehran in response to an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus.