Graphic: Saudi Arabia's missile base 'with launch pads aimed at Israel and Iran'
Graphic: Saudi Arabia has built a new missile base with launch pads aimed at both Israel and Iran, satellite photographs shown to The Telegraph have suggested.
Image showing two circular launch pads, #1 pointing in direction of Israel, and #2 pointing in direction of Iran. A vehicle-mounted ballistic launcher drives to the launch pads and directs itself along thick dark line pointing at ten o'clock. At the bottom of the image an underground bunker built into the hillside with two entrances, one 12 metres wide and the other 15 metres wide, can be seen, where missiles and their warheads are stored. Administrative and residential buildings are shown at the centre of the image.Jane's/DigitalGlobe
8:00PM BST 13 Jul 2013
Military experts at IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review made the discovery while studying images of a base in desert south-west of Riyadh that housed medium-range ballistic missiles. A pair of launch pads could be seen with launch markings apparently pointing north-west towards Tel Aviv and north-east towards Tehran.
The configuration of the launch pads, believed to have been built within the last five years, suggests that Saudi Arabia could perceive both countries as potential threats.
While the Sunni kingdom maintains discreet back channel contacts withIsrael, it has become increasingly concerned about the threats from Shia mullahs in Iran, which aspires to replace Saudi Arabia as the pre-eminent power in the Gulf.
There are fears that if Tehran succeeds in acquiring nuclear-weapons capability, Saudi Arabia will seek to follow suit. A Wikileaks cable from 2010 said that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia privately urged America to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme and “cut off the head of the snake”
Tensions have also been raised by the Syrian civil war, in which Riyadh has backed the rebels and Tehran has backed President Bashar al-Assad.
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