US to update Saudi artillery for USD 1.31 billion

The United States today approved a contract to sell Saudi Arabia 180 self-propelled artillery systems for USD 1.31 billion, in the latest stage of perhaps the world's biggest arms deal.

When US President Donald Trump visited Riyadh last year he boasted that the desert kingdom would spend $110 billion on US equipment and the howitzer contract is one more step towards that goal.

Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, is coming to the end of a three-week US tour that has been dotted with similar signs of his close ties with Trump's Washington.

Saudi Arabia has led a large-scale but so far unsuccessful Arab intervention in Yemen's civil war and has imposed a diplomatic and trade embargo on a fellow US ally in the Gulf, Qatar.

Recently, the crown prince detained Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri and tried to force him to resign.

Nevertheless, in announcing the weapons package, the US State Department described the kingdom as "a leading contributor of political stability and economic progress in the Middle East."