Saudi Arabia appears to be rising its ballistic missile manufacturing facility to assemble greater solid-fuel missiles that might fly farther or carry heavier payloads, in line with two U.S. researchers who analyzed better than a yr of enterprise satellite tv for pc television for computer photos.
Additional succesful missiles might help Saudi Arabia to discourage assaults by Iran and make its military further self-reliant, whereas most likely strengthening its place in a deadly battle with Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi fighters.
Nonetheless they menace fueling a regional missile race and can deepen opposition inside the U.S. Congress to a U.S.-Saudi civilian nuclear settlement that has already raised points about proliferation.
Satellite tv for pc television for computer agency Planet Labs, based inside the U.S., took photos of the al-Duwadimi difficult about 125 miles west of Riyadh between April 2025 and September 2026.
The two researchers, Sam Lair and Michael Duitsman of the Worldwide Protection Evaluation Institute, assessed that these photos current a model new setting up that houses casting pits — wells by which a mixture of gasoline elements is poured into missile motor casings and allowed to harden.
The Saudi embassy and Knowledge Ministry did not reply to requests for comment.
The setting up, flanked by what look like partitions to protect shut by constructions from unintended explosions, just isn’t lower than twice as huge as a result of the one believed to take care of the plant’s present casting pits, Lair and Duitsman said of their analysis. The Worldwide Protection Evaluation Institute (FPRI) is a non-partisan evaluation group in Philadelphia.
A second new setting up might very effectively be used to retailer gasoline elements or accomplished missile elements, they said.
The imagery “implies that Saudi Arabia is rising the infrastructure on the missile manufacturing difficult, extra prone to produce greater missiles which can ship greater payloads or attain longer ranges,” they wrote.
Militaries favor solid-fuel missiles because of they’re usually saved for prolonged durations and launched further quickly than liquid-fuel methods.
Lair and Duitsman and consultants from the London-based Worldwide Institute for Strategic Analysis (IISS) and the CNA evaluation and analysis group instructed Reuters that the make-up of Saudi Arabia’s missile drive implies that the al-Duwadimi difficult depends upon Chinese language language experience. Lair and Duitsman said that its traits are moreover very similar to Chinese language language missile vegetation.
Saudi Arabia secretly acquired about 40 liquid-fuel DF-3 ballistic missiles from China in 1987, in line with a 1991 declassified CIA estimate. It displayed two of them for the first time in an April 2014 military parade, in line with a YouTube video and pictures of the event.
The FPRI workers moreover simply currently acknowledged from social media motion pictures and pictures what they assessed was the wreckage in Yemen of a Saudi-fired Chinese language language-designed DF-15 missile.
Lair said the dominion might now be producing the solid-fuel DF-15, and that the expansion of a1-Dumadimi might be going for the manufacturing of the longer-range DF-21 or an an identical missile.
Riyadh is believed to have turned to Beijing because of Washington has prolonged restricted exports of longer-range missile methods.
The Chinese language language embassy and safety ministry did not reply to requests for comment. The CIA declined to comment. The White Dwelling did not reply to a request for comment.
Missiles would alter the stability of vitality
Sascha Bruchmann, a evaluation fellow at IISS, said longer-range missiles would allow Saudi Arabia to strike Iran with out risking its U.S.-supplied F-15 jet fighters in direction of Iranian air defenses.
“You’d need a system to threaten irrespective of is holy to Tehran … for individuals who don’t have the political will to ship an F-15 with JDAMs over Tehran,” said Bruchmann, referring to U.S.-made satellite-guided bombs. “Iran has a lead because of its missiles and drones can strike Saudi wherever it wishes. The Saudis might shut that performance gap a bit.”
Bruchmann, who reviewed the FPRI analysis at Reuters request, concurred that the expansion of al-Duwadimi might very effectively be for producing further extremely efficient solid-fuel missiles.
Janes, the safety intelligence agency, moreover reviewed it and said the buildings “might counsel an effort to extend manufacturing performance or help the occasion of longer-range missiles.”
Saudi Arabia’s apparent pursuit of additional extremely efficient missiles comes as completely different Gulf powers are moreover searching for to extend their offensive and defensive arsenals, said Decker Eveleth, a CNA analyst who has been monitoring the al-Duwadimi improvement with enterprise satellite tv for pc television for computer imagery and concurred with the FPRI analysis.
“That’s being replicated all through the Middle East,” he said. “You see exactly the an identical issue occurring inside the UAE. You see the exact same issue occurring in Turkey. Everyone seems to be doing this now.”
The expansion of al-Duwadimi might have political penalties inside the US by stiffening bipartisan congressional opposition to a US-Saudi settlement beneath which the US would help Riyadh arrange uranium enrichment for vitality know-how.
Opponents say that the deal lacks ample safeguards to cease Riyadh from secretly setting up a nuclear weapon. The dominion has denied any such plan.
Work began remaining yr
The FPRI analysis said the Planet Labs imagery confirmed that the expansion at al-Duwadimi began in April 2025 with ground-clearing and digging for the suspected storage setting up. Work on the suspected casting-pit setting up began later that month or in early May, it said.
A December 12, 2025, {photograph} confirmed what researchers assessed have been two deep pits contained within the setting up that had no roof however.
A Sept. 18, 2026, {photograph} reveals the roof nonetheless partly missing and “heavy obligation blast diverting partitions” on each side to cease unintended explosions from damaging adjoining constructions.
The partitions, the researchers said, are significantly very similar to these depicted in imagery of US and Iranian missile vegetation and “further proof the setting up is for casting steady propellant motors.”
Ending the roofs would not take prolonged, the FPRI said, nevertheless placing in casting instruments might take quite a few months. The power might very effectively be ready to begin out producing missiles as early because the tip of the yr.
