News – World: The United States has resumed arms sales to Saudi Arabia, despite the Kingdom still owing $15 million for aircraft fuel from its war in Yemen, The Intercept reported.

Reports indicate that the Saudi royal family controls assets worth more than $1.4 trillion, yet the Pentagon has been pursuing the Kingdom for years to collect the $15 million it owes for US support during the Yemen war.

Washington has restarted the export of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, following arms deals worth $10 billion over the past four years.

The outstanding debt relates to operations conducted between March 2015 and November 2018, during which the Pentagon spent about $300 million on aerial refueling missions to support Saudi and Emirati warplanes in Yemen, with US involvement.

A Pentagon report obtained by The Intercept revealed that Saudi Arabia has repeatedly misled the US regarding the unpaid fuel bill. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE paid a significant portion of the debt in 2021 and 2022, Saudi Arabia paid just over $950,000 of the $15.1 million that had accumulated by the end of last year.

According to the report, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, representatives from the Defense Logistics Agency and US Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, traveled to Riyadh in March 2022 to meet with the Saudi Ministry of Finance and senior Saudi Air Force commanders.

The report stated that at that time, the Saudi Ministry of Finance and the Saudi Air Force leadership expressed their willingness to pay the remaining outstanding fuel debts owed to DLA Energy by December 2022. However, when US officials met with their Saudi counterparts again more than a year later and raised the issue of the debt, the Saudi officials claimed they were "unaware of the outstanding debts and requested additional time to investigate the matter." By the end of last year, the debt remained unpaid.