The United Kingdom plans to commit Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoons to Saudi air defense, while France says its personnel have been deployed for eight days to help secure Yanbu, a Red Sea pipeline site.
The UK Ministry of Defence said the deployment is meant to strengthen Saudi Arabia's ability to guard residents and essential facilities against air attack. The Typhoons have a defensive remit, with the ministry ruling out offensive strikes against the Houthis. It provided neither a fleet size nor a mission start date.
Britain's package also includes an RAF A400M transport aircraft and advisers to Saudi staff officers. The ministry said it would extend refueling for Saudi defensive air operations, including missions against Houthi military sites in Yemen. UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said the Typhoons would help protect Saudi airspace from “drones and missiles.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said Oct. 21 that French personnel and military assets had been deployed for eight days to support security and restoration work at Yanbu. He did not give a personnel count or describe all the equipment involved. Macron said Houthi fire had disabled several capabilities at the site. He identified Yanbu as the Red Sea terminus of a Saudi pipeline from the Persian Gulf.
The UK ministry warned that the escalation could disrupt energy supplies, raise living costs and affect British businesses. It also said the violence was devastating Yemen's civilian population.
Coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said Oct. 15 that attacks on Saudi airports had killed 19 people and injured 364. The Associated Press reported separately that Saudi civil aviation authorities said an Oct. 21 attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam killed one person and injured eight. The Associated Press said the Houthis had not commented on that incident.
The Associated Press also reported that clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni forces resumed in mid-July, alongside renewed attacks on Saudi airports and oil facilities. The United Nations said an April 2022 truce included a halt to cross-border attacks; a later U.N. report said the truce formally ended Oct. 2, 2022.
Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera that the Houthis may seek to draw Saudi Arabia's allies deeper into the conflict. “The difference between deterrence and interdiction is an important one,” she said.
