According to reliable sources, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) receives annual commissions from illegal arms deals worth billions of dollars.
MBS has signed a number of arms deals totaling billions of dollars since taking office, completely disregarding the record-breaking unemployment and poverty rates.
Saudi Arabia ranked as the second-largest arms importer globally in 2018-2022. The Kingdom received 9.6 percent of all arms imports during that period.
Saudi arms purchases during 2022 included aircraft, air defense systems, armored vehicles, missiles, naval weapons, sensors, and ships.
Saudi Arabia’s main suppliers and their share of its total imports: US (78 percent), France (6.4 percent), and Spain (4.9 percent).
MBS’s large arms purchases are aimed at whitewashing his poor human rights record, especially after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country’s consulate in Istanbul.
MBS has spent a third of the kingdom’s budget on weapon purchases, despite the high unemployment rate.
Within the last 10 years, Saudi Arabia has turned itself into the world’s largest buyer of weapons on the world market. Ten years ago, it was buying 90% less than they are today.
The US and UK are the kingdom’s top suppliers. With purchases of astonishingly expensive weapons like helicopters, tanks, and guided missiles, nearly all of its foreign-made weapons (by value) come from these two countries.
The ramp up has been significant since their March 2015 intervention in the Yemen civil war. 17% of arms acquired by the country since the 1952 have come in the last three years, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Meanwhile, MBS spent 44.2 million euros on arms deals with Germany over the past year, the largest in four years.
According to the sources, a total of 48 approvals have been issued for Saudi Arabia. Of the total exports €7.1 million is for military weapons, €37.1 million is for other weapons.
These include deliveries of Tornado and Eurofighter fighters, which are manufactured in the UK. In addition, the German government allowed the US to export components for warships to Saudi Arabia for €40.8 million, which originally came from Germany.
Before the change of government in Germany in 2021, 30 export licences worth €2.52 million were granted to Saudi Arabia despite a massive arms export ban.
Saudi Arabia has spent a fortune buying arms from the US to prosecute a war that has killed almost a quarter of a million people — the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe in our lifetime.
However, no real achievement was reported, as Saudi Arabia failed to stop Houthi attacks on the Kingdom.
