Saudi Arabia Lost a Spy Plane to Iran. Now the Houthis Will Pay

The RE-3 is one of the Royal Saudi Air Force’s rarest aircraft: a Boeing 707-based signals-intelligence plane that works alongside the kingdom’s E-3 Sentry radar jets. Saudi Arabia took delivery of its two in 1987. Like most air forces that fly such surveillance planes, it keeps one airborne and the other in reserve, so the loss leaves a single jet with no backup.

These aircraft matter even though the Houthis have no fighter jets. They pick up drones, detect a new radar the moment it switches on, and intercept communications. Almost anything that moves in the sky over a battlefield shows up on their screens.

The strike hit the aircraft’s engine. It cannot take off, so there is no question of flying it to the United States for repair. It is a write-off.

Iran’s attacks on the base are well documented. On March 27 an Iranian missile and drone barrage destroyed a US E-3 Sentry and damaged American tankers parked there. The Saudi loss sat in the same wreckage, unnoticed until now. There are also unconfirmed indications that Saudi tankers were damaged when the US war on Iran began.

The American losses make the Saudi gap worse. US aircraft that could have supported Riyadh in Yemen were destroyed or damaged at the same base, and most of what remains is committed to Iran.

That gap explains the requests. On September 21 Britain agreed to send an RAF Voyager to refuel Saudi warplanes on defensive missions after Riyadh asked for military support. Riyadh also wants airborne surveillance cover in a hurry, and that will most likely come from France. Saudi Arabia knows how to fight in Yemen. What it needs is to replace the eyes in the sky that Iran took away.

On October 2 Axios reported that Saudi Arabia and Yemeni government forces are planning a major counteroffensive against the Houthis in the coming days. Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman called US War Secretary Pete Hegseth to brief him and asked again for American airstrikes. Hegseth again said no. Washington is providing advisers, intelligence and targeting data instead, and US officials said its position could change if the operation runs into trouble.

The air campaign is already well under way. Saudi aircraft have flown more than 200 strikes against the Houthis, including heavy raids on Sanaa. The Critical Threats Project and the Institute for the Study of War recorded dozens of strikes in a single day on Houthi fighters, reinforcements, weapons depots and supply centres in Taiz province, alongside strikes on “high-value targets” in Sanaa. The damage in Sanaa has cut the Houthis’ ability to supply their southern front lines.

Yemen’s army spokesman said government forces are striking vital Houthi targets in Sanaa and Saada, that fighting continues on the Jabal Habashi, al-Kadaha and al-Shamayatayn fronts, and that troops have retaken al-Makrama and al-Dhakira and taken the strategic Jabal al-Qasha in the Sama area of Taiz province.

Strikes on Sanaa go after the Houthi leadership’s decision-making centres and the supply lines that feed the front. That is how an army prepares a large ground campaign backed by heavy air power. Such a campaign needs tankers to keep jets over the battlefield and early-warning aircraft to see what is coming, the two things Saudi Arabia has asked its allies for.

The target is Mokha, the Red Sea port near the Bab al-Mandeb strait that the Houthis seized in mid-September. Riyadh is not aiming merely to relieve besieged towns. It intends to win back everything it has lost in Yemen since the Houthi offensive began.

It has also settled the Gulf’s biggest quarrel first. The Saudi–Emirati rapprochement over Yemen matters because the UAE holds sway over the Southern Transitional Council, an armed southern movement that can back the Saudi effort on the ground. A kingdom that resolves its disputes and lines up military support from its partners is preparing a campaign of revenge unlike any before it.

Pakistani military transport aircraft have been landing at Saudi airports, two on one day and two more the next. Their cargo has not been disclosed. Pakistan has already sent four planeloads of weapons to the Saudi-backed government in Aden, and vehicles from Türkiye (Turkey) have reached government forces. Both countries signed the Mecca Pact, a mutual defence treaty with Saudi Arabia, on August 7, and the pact’s next meeting may bring new decisions.

Turkish or Pakistani troops will not be fighting in Yemen, however. Nearly every country Riyadh has approached will provide intelligence, weapons or equipment, and none will fight beside it on the ground. Axios reported the same: Saudi Arabia will run this campaign alone, with Yemeni government forces doing the fighting on land.

On October 3 smoke rose over Riyadh after the Houthis claimed a ballistic-missile and drone strike on Aramco’s refinery south of the capital, calling it retaliation for the strikes on Sanaa. A night-time video of an explosion that circulated online was fake. The daytime smoke was real. Coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki called the Houthi claims “misleading” and said the group was trying to divert attention from its losses, from growing public anger at its conduct and from its ties to foreign agendas.

The Riyadh refinery exports nothing. It exists to meet the capital’s own fuel needs, so damage to its storage tanks could strain supply for Saudi residents in the months ahead.

The Houthis are escalating because they know what is coming and cannot stop it. They have attacked Mecca and Medina, hit gas tanks at the port of Yanbu, and on October 3 tried to strike Abqaiq, the heart of Saudi oil processing. Flightradar24 data showed air traffic over the kingdom disrupted the same day. Their strategy rests on a single bet: hurt the Saudi economy enough and Riyadh will change course. Two months of intensified strikes have changed nothing. The experts who predicted that Saudi Arabia would take the blows and never answer them were wrong.

Washington is betting on Saudi Arabia to do the job. Talk of US Marines landing in Yemen or American jets joining the campaign is fantasy. The United States will fight in Yemen only if the Saudi campaign fails, and that is unlikely. Saudi Arabia spent seven years at war there and will not simply repeat its old campaign. This time it has far better intelligence, and its pilots know exactly what they are hitting.

Washington’s attention is on Iran. President Donald Trump’s top national security aides met at Camp David to discuss Iran and Yemen, and Trump’s message to Tehran is now plain: sign a nuclear deal willingly, or face weapons never used before. When US support for the Saudi push was proposed, US Central Command (CENTCOM) objected that it would distract from Iran.

There is a well-known definition of stupidity: doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. A US military that simply repeated its eight-month campaign against Iran would be doing exactly that. The truce has given Washington time to rebuild and change its strategy, and Iran has used the time as well. Iran also sees far more than its own sensors allow, because Russia and China watch every inch of the Gulf’s military bases. Leaked documents reported by Euronews indicate that a Chinese spy satellite helped Iran monitor US military sites during the war.