ByPaul Iddon,
Senior Contributor.
Saudi Arabia has formally requested that Greece extend its deployment of a MIM-104 Patriot missile defense system in the kingdom until at least November 2026, the Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported. Riyadh already has Patriot systems of its own and is starting to operate the more sophisticated Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, and hasn’t fought the Houthis in Yemen since 2022. Plus, Athens has repeatedly said that Greece cannot afford to part with any strategic air defenses, like the Patriot, to help Ukraine’s strained defenses.
Therefore, one could reasonably ask, why does Saudi Arabia still need this Greek Patriot system?
Greece deployed the entire MIM-104 system and 120 personnel in September 2021. At that time, Saudi Arabia was still mired in the destructive war in Yemen, with the Houthis frequently targeting Saudi cities and energy infrastructure with increasingly lethal barrages of explosive drones and ballistic missiles. Riyadh expended large numbers of expensive Patriot interceptors in its efforts to fend off these projectiles. In one incident in 2019, a single Saudi Patriot battery shot down six Houthi ballistic missiles in less than 50 seconds.
