Agnes Helou is Breaking Defense's Middle East Bureau Chief, with close to a decade of experience in covering regional defense and strategic topics. She was the managing Editor of Security and Defense Arabia, an Arabic language defense website and magazine, and covered the Middle East and North Africa defense and security topics for Defense News for three years. Her reporting expertise covers the Gulf, North Africa, Middle East and Southern Europe.
Agnes has a master’s degree and is pursuing her PhD in media economics from the Doctoral School of Literature, Humanities & Social Sciences in Lebanon. Her interests include artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, air defense, maritime and border security regional strategic issues.
Qatar indicated it was going with France’s VBCI back in 2017, but as no final order has been signed, competition with fellow KNDS-produced vehicle Boxer is alive and well.
In 2019 the US State Department approved the sale of 60 PAC-3 MSE and 36 Patriot MIM-104E Guidance Enhanced Missiles (GEM-T) missiles with canisters to Bahrain in a deal worth an estimated $2.5 billion.
A top official from state-owned Barzan Holdings told Breaking Defense the firm has invested with US-based SpinLaunch to fling satellites into orbit without the use of rockets.
One representative at Tehran’s expansive booth told Breaking Defense the weapons are available to export to basically any country except the US and Israel.
The deal may have been announced in response to tensions in east Africa, but analysts told Breaking Defense it fits with Turkey’s long investment in the region and its aim to be a maritime player beyond its shores.
The EU opted to start its own maritime security force in the Red Sea, despite a months-long established American-led effort. Analysts see evidence of fissures between Western partners.
“Foreign firms that are direct beneficiaries of lucrative Saudi government contracts will most likely be the first to relocate. […] Firms who are invested in the Saudi market but do not have direct government dealings will likely try to bide themselves more time,” one expert said.
Speaking at Saudi Arabia’s World Defense Show, EDGE Group’s Hamad Al Marar told Breaking Defense provided updates on a number of EDGE iniatives, including a new deal with a Turkish drone maker.
The wide range of equipment on display by China was dominated by armed and unarmed drones, but also covered fighter jet models, air-to-air missiles, long-range air and missile defense systems, anti-tank and C4ISR kit.
L3Harris is also in the process of setting up an engineering center at joint venture laboratory where “we will be doing waveform development, crypto, and that type of niche technology that complements the production capabilities in Saudi Arabia.”
