Saudi Arabian pilot discusses operation in Yemen

Captain Khalid spoke at a sprawling airbase in southern Saudi Arabia.

A pick up truck loaded with bombs driving at the Khamis Mushait military airbase, some 880-km from Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh. AFP Photo

KHAMIS MUSHAIT, SAUDI ARABIA // At a sprawling airbase in southern Saudi Arabia, another warplane roars off into the harsh sun carrying a payload of laser- and GPS-guided bombs to drop over Yemen.

Roughly 100 kilometres from the Yemeni border, the King Khalid Air Base near the city of Khamis Mushait is at the forefront of the Saudi-led intervention against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Launched in March, the campaign aims to support Yemen’s internationally recognised government in its fight against the Iran-backed rebels who seized much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

A coalition of mainly Gulf Arab nations led by Riyadh has for months been pounding the rebels almost daily with air strikes, many of them launched from this base in the mountainous southwestern Asir province.

Pilots, like Captain Khalid of the Royal Saudi Air Force, collect helmets, green vests and pistols from a locker room before walking through a wooden door to the tarmac, where warplanes from coalition countries stand by for missions.

Saudi Arabia’s US-made F-15 fighters sit next to a desert-shaded Sukhoi from Sudan and a French-made Mirage from Qatar.

Standing beside his F-15, Capt Khalid says his mission is to protect Yemeni civilians from the Houthis and their allies.

“We protect our country as well,” the 32-year-old adds.

Capt Khalid has spent nearly a decade in the Saudi air force. He took part in the country’s last war against the Houthis, when Saudi troops were in action for several weeks in 2009 after a rebel incursion over the southern frontier.

He says he has flown countless sorties in this latest conflict — between 150 and 200 hours of flight time.

The coalition has sent ground troops to Yemen to support president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi ’s forces, but the main focus has been on air strikes.

It has not released recent figures on how many strikes have been carried out but the air campaign has been intense.

Rights groups have repeatedly criticised the air war over civilian deaths, accusing the coalition of not doing enough to avoid non-military targets.

The United Nations says more than 5,700 people have been killed in Yemen, about half of them civilians, since March when fighting intensified.

On Friday, Saudi Arabia said it launched an investigation after an aid group said it struck one of its clinics.

Doctors Without Borders says a Saudi-led airstrike on Wednesday near Taez in Southern Yemen hit its clinic there, wounding nine people.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency said the kingdom it was investigating and vowed “to publish, with the utmost transparency, the findings.”

The coalition vehemently denies reports of indiscriminate bombing and at the King Khalid base pilots say they take every precaution.

“We always use guided bombs to make the weapon more precise,” Capt Khalid says, his words difficult to hear as another fighter takes off, shaking the insides of those standing near the runway.

“We target the military buildings and troops.”

Capt Khalid says the crew never release their weapons “unless we are 100 per cent sure” of the target, but he and others in the coalition accuse the Houthis and their allies of using civilians as shields.

The proximity of civilian and military facilities means “it’s not easy to target”, a source said.

Capt Khalid says he has felt no danger during his missions and, so far, coalition air forces have only reported a single loss.

A Moroccan pilot died in May when his F-16 fighter crashed in the Houthi stronghold of Saada. Rebels said they shot it down but the coalition blamed human error or a technical fault.

Khamis Mushait, the city near the Saudi airbase, came under attack in June from a Scud missile launched from Yemen but a Patriot missile shot it down, the coalition said.

The air war has been so intense that the United States last month approved a $1.29 billion deal to replenish the Saudi air force’s depleted arsenal.

US forces have also assisted the coalition with aerial refuelling and intelligence.

A few Americans in civilian clothes could be seen inside the base, which resembles a small city with its own post office, bank, mosques, convenience store and laundry, on streets decorated with large model warplanes.

* Agence France-Presse, Associated Press