Riyadh: Saudi Arabia's planned massive arms deal with the United States is aimed at establishing air superiority over Iran while also addressing weaknesses bared in border fighting with Yemeni rebels, experts said on Thursday.
The package is in part a response to failures in Saudi Arabia's three-month assault on Al Houthi rebels along the Yemeni border in late 2009 and early 2010.
The better-armed Saudi forces lost at least 109 men in guerrilla-type fighting in the craggy border mountains, and the conflict went on many weeks longer than they expected.
"The Saudi forces were not prepared for this type of warfare. They suffered much in the same way the Soviets did in Afghanistan," analyst Theodore Karasik said.
The strike helicopters, the JDAM smart bombs, and night warfare technology possibly in the package would boost Saudi capabilities in this kind of scenario, according to Karasik.
The Saudis had also wanted to buy missile-carrying drones like the Predator used by US forces in Afghanistan, but were unlikely to get them, according to another analyst who requested anonymity.
Analysts saw the deal as posing little threat to Israel, and, in the way it deepens US-Saudi ties, actually benefitting the Jewish state.
Israeli leaders as a matter of habit will criticise the deal, said Yiftah Shapir, a military expert at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
