Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) plans to purchase new artillery systems from France, Saudi military sources revealed.
The CAESAR is one of the most powerful weapons France has sold to Saudi Arabia. Manufactured by Nexter, an entirely state-owned French defence company, it is an artillery piece made up of a mighty gun mounted on an all-wheel-drive truck chassis.
The Caesar truck-mounted artillery system is a 155 mm 52-calibre self-propelled gun developed by Nexter Systems (formerly Giat), based in Versailles, in cooperation with Lohr Industrie of Hangenbieten, France.
MBS is expected to reach the deal, which is estimated at millions of euros, during his visit to France.
In July 2022, MBS visited Paris, sparking rights concerns angered as he seeks to further rehabilitate himself in light of his poor human rights record.
During MBS’s visit to France, dozens of people gathered outside Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Paris to protest against the gulf state’s war in Yemen and the killing in Turkey of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The Paris visit was the first foreign tour made by MBS after Khashoggi’s murder in 2018.
An intelligence report issued by the Biden administration has earlier affirmed that MBS approved the assassination of the Washington Post journalist in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
For his turn, French president Emmanuel Macron was the first Western leader to visit Saudi Arabia after the incident in December 2021.
The 36-year-old became a pariah in the West following the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Military sources revealed that French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu is forcing MBS to purchase French weapons, especially the Rafale planes.
A military deal, of about 10 billion euros, is scheduled to be reached with Saudi Arabia in the near future, the sources added.
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.
Reliable sources revealed that Saudi Arabia is the fifth-largest military spender worldwide, spending some $75 billion last year. Supposedly, this puts Riyadh above the UK, Germany, and France.
Saudi Arabia’s military spending in 2022 increased by 16%, reaching an estimated $75 billion, the largest since 2018, the sources clarified.
In 2022, Riyadh spent an estimated $75bn on its military, according to the sources, up from the $48bn it spent in 2021. This was more than seven percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Saudi Arabia was last ranked in the top three military spenders in 2020.
Saudi military spending exceeded in 5 years the spending in the education and health sectors, estimated at $273 billion, representing 20.9% of government spending in total.
Since 2016, Saudi Arabia has intensified its military spending, which includes non-military security institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Interior.
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, they were buying 90% less than they are today.
MBS has signed a number of arms deals totaling billions of dollars since taking office, completely disregarding record-breaking unemployment and poverty rates.
