The United Kingdom will provide Saudi Arabia with military support in its escalating war against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi group, the British government said this week. The UK agreed to provide air-to-air refuelling of Saudi fighter jets that are conducting missions after the kingdom requested air-defence support, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Monday. However, it will not directly join Riyadh’s renewed conflict with the Houthis, which began in 2014 after the Houthis seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa along with large areas of northwest Yemen, driving the internationally recognised government to Aden.
The two sides had reached a United Nations-mediated ceasefire in 2022, before fighting broke out again this year amid the US-Israel war on Iran. Particularly heavy fighting erupted again two weeks ago as the Houthis advanced against Yemeni forces to the Red Sea coast, taking the strategic port city of Mocha and Mayyun Island in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb, the entry point for shipping entering the Red Sea from the south. Since then, the group has targeted Riyadh as well as Saudi oil infrastructure, including taking out a section of the vital East-West Pipeline that had allowed Saudi to make oil exports despite disruption in the Strait of Hormuz triggered by the Iran war.
Before the latest bout of fighting broke out, the Houthis had also declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and Red Sea, through which about 12 percent of global trade passes. Here is what you need to know about what support the UK will provide: British PM Burnham said London had accepted a Saudi request for what he called “defensive air-to-air refuelling”. Britain will deploy one Royal Air Force Voyager tanker aircraft to assist with this in the coming days.
Burnham said the arrangement would be “time-limited” and would be kept under review. However, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has not specified a timetable. Burnham said the UK was “acting to secure the interests of Britain and the wider region”, linking the need to keep oil export routes open.
In a statement, the MoD told Al Jazeera that the decision to provide support “builds on the UK’s existing military contribution to Saudi Arabia’s air defence”, including the deployment of “air defence equipment and UK personnel helping to protect against missile and drone attacks”. It is in the UK’s interest to protect regional stability, protecting vital trade and energy supplies and encouraging a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Yemen,” the MoD said. Air-to-air refuelling is the transfer of aviation fuel from one aircraft to another in mid-air.
Refuelling in mid-air will allow Saudi fighter jets to remain airborne past their fuel limits, in order to spend more time patrolling Saudi airspace or responding to incoming threats. Saudi Arabia faces potential threats to cities, military installations and energy infrastructure spread across a very large area. While the Houthis have largely targeted Saudi cities in the south of the country, close to the Yemeni border, they have hit targets in the capital city, Riyadh, in the country’s centre.
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