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🇸🇦🇾🇪 Saudi Arabia is the world’s top buyer of U.S. weapons, and Houthi missiles are still getting through.
It just paid $9 billion for 730 Patriot missiles, yet Houthi strikes have hit its airports and killed at least 14 people.
So how? It comes down to 4 things.
First, size. Saudi Arabia is about 3 times as big as Texas, with oil sites, airports and bases spread out across all of it.
Second, experience. The Houthis learned how to flood radars with drones while firing at Israel, and some of their missiles can change direction mid-flight.
Third, numbers. They’ve grown from about 30,000 fighters in 2015 to as many as 350,000 by 2024, while Saudi Arabia is reportedly running low on interceptors.
And fourth, a bad guess. A former U.S. ambassador to Riyadh says the Saudis assumed the Houthis would never hit civilian targets like airports.
They were wrong, and now they’re paying for it.
Source: NBC News
#worldnews
🇸🇦🇾🇪 Saudi Arabia is the world’s top buyer of U.S. weapons, and Houthi missiles are still getting through.
It just paid $9 billion for 730 Patriot missiles, yet Houthi strikes have hit its airports and killed at least 14 people.
So how? It comes down to 4 things.
First, size. Saudi Arabia is about 3 times as big as Texas, with oil sites, airports and bases spread out across all of it.
Second, experience. The Houthis learned how to flood radars with drones while firing at Israel, and some of their missiles can change direction mid-flight.
Third, numbers. They’ve grown from about 30,000 fighters in 2015 to as many as 350,000 by 2024, while Saudi Arabia is reportedly running low on interceptors.
And fourth, a bad guess. A former U.S. ambassador to Riyadh says the Saudis assumed the Houthis would never hit civilian targets like airports.
They were wrong, and now they’re paying for it.
Source: NBC News
#worldnews