“Saudi Arabia became the first Middle East nation to publicly exhibit its nuclear-capable missiles. The long-range, liquid propellant DF-3 ballistic missile (NATO designated CSS-2), purchased from China 27 years ago, was displayed for the first time at a Saudi military parade Tuesday, April 29, in the eastern military town of Hafar Al-Batin, at the junction of the Saudi-Kuwaiti-Iraqi borders. The DF-3 has a range of 2,650 km and carries a payload of 2,150 kg. It is equipped with a single nuclear warhead with a 1-3 MT yield. Watched by a wide array of Saudi defense and military dignitaries, headed by Crown Prince and Deputy Prime Minister Salman bin Abdulaziz, the parade marked the end of the large-scale “Abdullah’s Sword” military war game. Conspicuous on the saluting stand was the Pakistani Chief of Staff Gen. Raheel Sharif alongside eminent visitors, including King Hamad of Bahrain and Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report the event was deliberately loaded with highly-significant messages………….”
I am doubtful about the exact purpose of all this, but why not? Everybody else in the region seems to spend a lot of time and resources doing military exercises and parades. From Iran to North Africa they do it all the time. Even faraway NATO powers do exercises all over the region. Even Al Qaeda terrorist franchises do it, wherever they do these things. So why not the Saudis?
They called it “Abdullah’s Sword” possibly full of Freudian phallic symbolism. Still, isn’t that neighborly and downright sweet to call their war games after the King of Jordan?
Dunno about the “highly-significant messages”, though. Normally countries build their bombs then they focus about delivery (mostly they assume they would never need to deliver or maybe in a few cases they think they can drop them off bombers, a la Enola Gay). The only message I see here is that the Saudis can buy all the missiles they want from around the world, money is no object. But that is no good in a nuclear context: it is like owning a huge store of purchased bullets and lacking a gun to shoot them with. Like owning a wagon but no horses, a big hat but no cattle. You get my drift.
