CENTCOM developing contingency logistics sites in Saudi Arabia

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has revealed four sites in western Saudi Arabia that it is using as part of an effort to establish more resilient supply lines.

CENTCOM commander General McKenzie visits Prince Sultan Air Base in January 2020. (US Marine Corps)

After accompanying CENTCOM commander General Kenneth McKenzie on a visit to the kingdom on 25 January, The Wall Street Journal identified the sites as commercial and industrial ports in Yanbu and airbases in Tabuk and Taif.

The newspaper published a photograph of Gen McKenzie at a currently unused part of King Fahad Industrial Port Yanbu. King Faisal Air Base and King Fahd Air Base are located in Tabuk and Taif respectively.

“What it does is to give us options, and options are always a good thing for a commander to have,” Gen McKenzie said. He added that personnel, aircraft, and weapons have been moved through all the sites over the past year to test how they can be used to transfer assets in and out of the region. Additional sites that Gen McKenzie declined to identify are under consideration.

CENTCOM spokesman Captain Bill Urban told the Associated Press on the following day that the plan was prompted by the 19 September 2019 attack on Saudi oil facilities using cruise missiles and unmanned aircraft and that Riyadh has already paid for improvements at the sites.

“These are prudent military planning measures that allow for temporary or conditional access of facilities in the event of a contingency,” he said. “[They] are not provocative in any way, nor are they an expansion of the US footprint in the region.”