Saudi Arabia has stopped issuing public warnings of impending military attacks days before four deadly strikes on the airport in Riyadh. The attacks killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 300, Reuters reported. The government has not explained why it did not warn the population.
The lack of warnings has raised questions about the kingdom's vulnerability and its ability to protect residents and visitors to the country. Four Western and Arab officials in the region, as well as political analysts, have linked the decision to the authorities’ desire to maintain a sense of normalcy amid the war with Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis.
System silent despite new attacks
Saudi Arabia introduced a national early warning system in May that sends notifications to mobile phones and social media accounts. Despite the increased number of Houthi attacks in recent weeks, the system did not issue alerts before the strikes on Riyadh.
The last warning before the attacks was issued on September 29 for the southern province of Najran. Later, the Saudi Civil Defense issued new alerts about potential threats in Riyadh and southern cities. Reuters has not determined whether the renewed warnings were directly related to the airport attacks.
Two Western officials familiar with the matter said that before the strikes, a Western-allied government had asked Saudi authorities for an explanation for why the alerts had been suspended. The response was that the warnings were too disturbing and many citizens had complained that they had been kept awake at night by them. The Saudi government has not commented on the claim.
Analysts warn of backlash
According to Saudi researcher Sultan Alamer, the authorities are trying to achieve two goals at once.
“They want to act in two directions at once: to launch a military operation and at the same time to instill confidence in the population and external stakeholders,“ Alamer said.However, regional analysts warn that the lack of information could backfire and increase insecurity in the kingdom.
Saudi analyst Ali Shihabi, close to the government, points out that the size of the country makes protecting all strategic sites extremely difficult.
“There is too much to protect in Saudi Arabia. It is a huge country with airports, pipelines and oil facilities. There simply isn't enough capacity to defend everything at once - there aren't enough Patriot systems, interceptors and missile batteries for that purpose, Shihabi said.He said the kingdom has an "unlimited need for air defense systems." During the period without public warnings, Riyadh has been attacked about a dozen times, according to two Western officials. Western embassies have issued their own internal warnings to their staff, but there was no such warning before the deadliest attack on the airport on Saturday.
Sources: news.bg, internazionale.it