UAE signs major missile deals with US giant Raytheon

The United Arab Emirates announced on 18 February 2019 that it had signed deals worth more than $1.6 billion for the purchase of Patriot missile launchers from US arms giant Raytheon, state media said.

The deals, inked on the second day of an internationalmilitary exhibition in Abu Dhabi, come a day after the UAE announced it would buy $353 million worth of Patriot missiles from Raytheon.

Some $3.2 billion in deals have been signed between the oil-rich state and western companies at the expo, set to run until the 21 February, state-run WAM news agency said.

The UAE, long a key ally of the US, maintains close ties with the administration of President Donald Trump.

The US is preparing to build a military hospital, funded by the UAE, in Abu Dhabi to treat Emirati soldiers and American troops based in the region, a US army official said 17 February.

The facility would be ‘very similar’ to the one in Landstuhl, Germany, the biggest American hospital outside the US, said Lieutenant General Charles Hooper, director of the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency.

The UAE is part of a Saudi-led coalition that intervened inthe Yemen war in 2015 to bolster the government against Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

The World Health Organisation says some 10,000 people have been killed since the coalition intervened in 2015, but rights groups argue the death toll could be five times as high.