A Royal Air Force Voyager sent to Saudi Arabia to provide air-to-air refuelling has already flown fourteen operational missions, alongside air defence also deployed by Britain, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons.
Andy Burnham set out the deployment in a statement on the United Nations General Assembly and the international meetings that followed it, describing the Middle East as one of the subjects he had discussed with President Trump in New York.
He said: “I confirmed Britain’s decision to send air defence and a Voyager aircraft to Saudi Arabia to provide air to air refuelling support. I can confirm today it has already completed 14 operational missions. This support is needed to protect civilians. I condemn the appalling attacks on the King Khalid International Airport. We will continue to stand with Saudi Arabia against the Houthis.”
The deployment was agreed in late September in response to a Saudi request, with the Prime Minister acting on the advice of the Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, and the Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband. Mr Burnham said then that Britain was acting to secure the interests of this country and the wider region, and that pathways needed to be kept open. Saudi Arabia was reported to be running low on interceptor stocks as Houthi ballistic missile and drone attacks, which began on 8 September, continued.
The attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh came on 8 October, when a Houthi ballistic missile killed three people, among them a Saudia pilot, Captain Hamoud Ali Alkalthami, and wounded dozens more, several of them foreign nationals. A Saudia aircraft was damaged. Operations at the airport have since resumed.
Attacks on Abha and King Khalid airports in early October killed three civilians and injured thirty-six, according to the Saudi civil aviation authority, and strikes on Jazan and Najran airports wounded at least three. The coalition said on 18 September that it had intercepted a ballistic missile aimed at King Khalid, and an explosion was heard near the airport the following day with smoke rising from a fuel storage area.
Pakistan and Turkey have agreed to deploy forces under mutual defence arrangements signed with Saudi Arabia earlier this year, and a Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman has said his country now has a substantial number of forces and resources in Riyadh, acting in defence of Saudi territory without crossing into Houthi-held areas.
Voyager is the Royal Air Force’s only air-to-air refuelling aircraft and also carries the strategic air transport role, flying in two configurations, the KC Mk 2 with two underwing pods for fast jets and the KC Mk 3 with an additional centreline hose for larger aircraft.
Think we need it here to be honest 🤔
Needs to be where it is tasked doing what it is tasked to do.
Russian aircraft still make time to fly by the UK despite their shrinking numbers.