{"id":13250,"date":"2018-03-12T21:13:34","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=13250"},"modified":"2018-03-12T21:13:34","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:13:34","slug":"us-saudi-forces-launch-friendship-war-games-amid-yemen-offensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/us-saudi-forces-launch-friendship-war-games-amid-yemen-offensive\/","title":{"rendered":"US, Saudi forces launch \u2018friendship\u2019 war games amid Yemen offensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saudi and US military forces have launched joint \u201cfriendship\u201d war games in the kingdom\u2019s northern region as the Riyadh regime presses ahead with its deadly campaign against Yemen with Washington\u2019s support.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The maneuvers, dubbed Friendship Military Exercises 2018, are due to continue for several days with the announced objective of boosting military ties between the two countries, Saudi state news outlet al-Arabiya reported Monday.<\/p>\n

The report further cited Saudi military\u2019s Assistant Training Director Brigadier General Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Buqmi as emphasizing \u201cthe readiness\u201d of the Saudi forces taking part in the drills and equipment \u201cto carry out the exercise activities as planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the mostly pictorial report, American forces participating in the war games had arrived in Saudi Arabia \u201cdays earlier with all its military personnel and technical equipment,\u201d without elaborating on the sorts of military hardware and the number of troops deployed for the drills.<\/p>\n

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This photo released by Saudi state media outlet al-Arabiya on March 11, 2018, shows Saudi and US military officers at the site of a joint war game.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Since March 2015, the Saudi regime, together with a coalition of its allies, has been striking Yemen. It has been attempting unsuccessfully to reinstall\u00a0Yemen\u2019s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.<\/p>\n

More than 13,600 people have so far been killed since the Saudi military invasion of Yemen began, turning the impoverished nation into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n

Moreover, much of the country\u2019s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and factories, has been reduced to rubble in the Saudi war.<\/p>\n

The development comes a day after Yemen\u2019s Prime Minister Abdel-Aziz bin Habtour said\u00a0in a Press TV interview that the Saudi regime would not be able to carry out airstrikes against the impoverished country without Washington\u2019s active backing.<\/p>\n

In addition to its logistical support, the US has been lavishing sophisticated weaponry upon Saudi Arabia since March 2015.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
PressTV-Saudi Arabia leads arms flood to Middle East: Study<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), arms imports to the Middle East\u00a0between 2013 and 2017 jumped by 103 percent compared with the previous five-year period.<\/a><\/div>\n

According to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Saudi Arabia has registered a 225-percent rise in military purchases – almost all from the US and Europe \u2013 over the past five years.<\/p>\n

The American weapon sales to Riyadh include a $110-billion deal signed last May when US President Donald Trump paid a visit to the oil-rich kingdom in his maiden foreign visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi and US military forces have launched joint \u201cfriendship\u201d war games in the kingdom\u2019s northern region as the Riyadh regime presses ahead with its deadly campaign against Yemen with Washington\u2019s support. The maneuvers, dubbed Friendship Military Exercises 2018, are due to continue for several days with the announced objective of boosting military ties between the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13252,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250\/revisions\/13252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}