A US military source said on Thursday that Washington decided to withdraw four Patriot missile batteries with its crews from Saudi Arabia after it considered that the threat posed by Iran to the interests of the United States in the region has receded.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that two of these batteries were deployed by the United States in Saudi Arabia after the missile attacks that targeted oil installations in the Kingdom, “they are leaving now.”

In September, the kingdom witnessed an unprecedented attack targeting ballistic missiles and booby-trapped planes facilities for the Aramco oil company and was adopted by the Houthis in Yemen, but Riyadh and its Western allies held Iran responsible for these rebels.

The Americans kept the other two batteries in the area in March after a missile attack by pro-Iranian factions on the Iraqi base of Taji, north of Baghdad, in which two Americans and a British soldier were killed.

These batteries were supposed to return to the United States for maintenance, but the US military kept them in the kingdom due to the tensions at the time.

“Everyone knew that it was a temporary matter, unless things went wrong. Things did not go wrong, and therefore it was necessary to return” these missile defense systems to the United States, the military source added.

Returning these batteries to the United States also means that their teams of about 300 American soldiers will also leave the area.

This decision comes the day after the new Iraqi government headed by Mustafa Al-Kazemi won the confidence of Parliament after five months of vacancy. Al-Kazemi, the former head of the intelligence service, is one of the few Iraqi politicians to have the support of Washington and Tehran at the same time.

SOURCE : SAUDI24.NEWS