US to lift ban on offensive weapons sales to Saudi Arabia

By Humeyra Pamuk, Patricia Zengerle and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration has decided to lift a ban on U.S. sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, the State Department said on Friday, reversing a three-year-old policy to pressure the kingdom to wind down the Yemen war.

The State Department was lifting its suspension on certain transfers of air-to-ground munitions to Saudi Arabia, a senior department official confirmed. "We will consider new transfers on a typical case-by-case basis consistent with the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy," the official said.

Reuters was first to report the decision earlier, citing five sources.

The administration briefed Congress this week on its decision to lift the ban, a congressional aide said. One source said sales could resume as early as next week. The U.S. government was moving ahead on Friday afternoon with notifications about a sale, a person briefed on the matter said.

"The Saudis have met their end of the deal, and we are prepared to meet ours," a senior Biden administration official said.

Under U.S. law, major international weapons deals must be reviewed by members of Congress before they are made final. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have questioned the provision of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia in recent years, citing issues including the toll on civilians of its campaign in Yemen and a range of human rights concerns.

But that opposition has softened amid turmoil in the Middle East following Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel and because of changes in the conduct of the campaign in Yemen.

Since March 2022 - when the Saudis and Houthis entered into a U.N.-led truce - there have not been any Saudi airstrikes in Yemen and cross-border fire from Yemen into the kingdom has largely stopped, the administration official said.

"We also note the positive steps that the Saudi Ministry of Defense have taken over the past three years to substantially improve their civilian harm mitigation processes, in part thanks to the work of U.S. trainers and advisors," the State Department official said.

WARMER SAUDI TIES

Yemen's war is seen as one of several proxy battles between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Houthis ousted a Saudi-backed government from Sanaa in late 2014 and have been at war against a Saudi-led military alliance since 2015, a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and left 80% of Yemen's population dependent on humanitarian aid.

Biden adopted the tougher stance on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in 2021, citing the kingdom's campaign against the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, which has inflicted heavy civilian casualties.

Ties between the kingdom and the United States have warmed since then, as Washington has worked more closely with Riyadh in the aftermath of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack to devise a plan for post-war Gaza.

The Biden administration also has been negotiating a defense pact and an agreement for civil nuclear cooperation with Riyadh as part of a broad deal that envisions Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel, although that remains an elusive goal.

The decision comes as the threat level in the region has been heightened since late last month, with Iran and Lebanon's powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group vowing to retaliate against Israel after Hamas' political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.

The Houthis have emerged as a strong supporter of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in its war against Israel. Earlier this year, they attacked commercial ships that they said are linked to Israel or bound for Israeli ports.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Patricia Zengerle and Steve Holland; additional reporting by Mike Stone; editing by Michelle Nichols and Rod Nickel)