{"id":3219,"date":"2026-10-24T11:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T06:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3219"},"modified":"2026-10-24T11:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T06:03:47","slug":"saudi-arabia-expands-missile-factory-to-build-more-powerful-missiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3219","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia expands missile factory to build more powerful missiles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Saudi Arabia appears to be expanding its ballistic missile factory to build larger solid-fuel missiles that could fly farther or carry heavier payloads, according to two US researchers who analysed \u200bmore than a year of commercial satellite images.<\/strong><\/p>\n

More capable missiles could help Saudi Arabia to deter attacks by Iran and make its military more self-reliant, while possibly strengthening its position in a deadly \u200cconflict with Yemen\u2019s Tehran-backed Houthi fighters.<\/p>\n

But they risk fuelling a regional missile race and could deepen opposition in the US Congress to a US-Saudi civilian nuclear agreement that has already raised concerns about proliferation.<\/p>\n

Satellite company Planet Labs, based in the US, took images of the Al Duwadimi complex about 200km west of Riyadh between April 2025 and September 2026.<\/p>\n

The two researchers, Sam Lair and Michael Duitsman of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, assessed that those images show a new building that houses casting pits \u2014 wells in which a mixture of fuel ingredients is \u200bpoured into missile motor casings and allowed to harden.<\/p>\n

The Saudi embassy and Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

The building, flanked by what appear to be walls to protect nearby structures from accidental explosions, is \u200bat least twice as large as the one believed to house the plant\u2019s existing casting pits, Lair and Duitsman said in their assessment.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) is \u2060a non-partisan research organisation in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

A second new building could be used to store fuel ingredients or finished missile components, they said.<\/p>\n

The imagery \u201csuggests that Saudi Arabia is expanding the infrastructure at the missile production complex, likely to produce larger missiles \u200bwhich could deliver larger payloads or reach longer ranges,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

Militaries favour solid-fuel missiles because they can be stored for long periods and launched more quickly than liquid-fuel systems.<\/p>\n

Lair and Duitsman and experts from the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) \u200band the CNA research and analysis organisation told Reuters that the makeup of Saudi Arabia\u2019s missile force suggests that the Al Duwadimi complex relies on Chinese technology. Lair and Duitsman said that its characteristics are also similar to Chinese missile plants.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia secretly acquired about 40 liquid-fuel DF-3 ballistic missiles from China in 1987, according to a 1991 declassified CIA estimate.<\/p>\n

It displayed two of them for the first time in an April 2014 military parade, according to a YouTube video and photographs of the event.<\/p>\n

The FPRI team also recently identified from social media \u200bvideos and photos what they assessed was the wreckage in Yemen of a Saudi-fired Chinese-designed DF-15 missile.<\/p>\n

Lair said the kingdom may now be producing the solid-fuel DF-15, and that the expansion of Al Dumadimi is likely for the production of the \u200blonger-range DF-21 or a similar missile.<\/p>\n

Riyadh is believed to have turned to Beijing because Washington has long restricted exports of longer-range missile systems.<\/p>\n

The Chinese embassy and defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The CIA declined to comment. The White House did \u200cnot respond to \u2060a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Balance of power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sascha Bruchmann, a research fellow at IISS, said longer-range missiles would allow Saudi Arabia to strike Iran without risking its US-supplied F-15 jet fighters against Iranian air defences.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d want a system to threaten whatever is holy to Tehran \u2026 if you don\u2019t have the political will to send an F-15 with JDAMs over Tehran,\u201d said Bruchmann, referring to US-made satellite-guided bombs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran has a lead because its missiles and drones can strike Saudi wherever it wants. The Saudis could close that capability gap a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruchmann, who reviewed the FPRI analysis at Reuters request, concurred that the expansion of Al Duwadimi could be for producing more powerful solid-fuel missiles.<\/p>\n

Janes, the defence intelligence company, also reviewed it and said the \u200bbuildings \u201cmay suggest an effort to expand production capability or support \u200bthe development of longer-range missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia\u2019s apparent pursuit of \u2060more powerful missiles comes as other Gulf powers are also seeking to expand their offensive and defensive arsenals, said Decker Eveleth, a CNA analyst who has been tracking the Al Duwadimi construction with commercial satellite imagery and concurred with the FPRI assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is being replicated across the Middle East,\u201d he said. \u201cYou see exactly the same thing happening in the UAE. You see \u200bthe exact same thing happening in Turkey. Everybody is doing this now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The expansion of al-Duwadimi could have political consequences in the US by stiffening bipartisan congressional opposition to \u200ba US-Saudi agreement under which the \u2060US would help Riyadh establish uranium enrichment for power generation.<\/p>\n

Opponents say that the deal lacks sufficient safeguards to prevent Riyadh from secretly building a nuclear weapon. The kingdom has denied any such plan.<\/p>\n

Work began last year<\/strong><\/p>\n

The FPRI assessment said the Planet Labs imagery showed that the expansion at Al Duwadimi began in April 2025 with ground-clearing and digging for the suspected storage building.<\/p>\n

Work on the suspected casting-pit building began later that month or in early May, it said.<\/p>\n

A December 12, 2025, photo showed what researchers assessed were \u2060two deep pits \u200binside the building that had no roof yet.<\/p>\n

The walls, the researchers said, are somewhat similar to those depicted in imagery of US and Iranian missile plants and \u201cfurther evidence the building is for casting solid propellant motors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finishing the roofs would not take long, the FPRI said, but installing casting \u200bequipment may take several months.<\/p>\n

The facility could be ready to start producing missiles as early as the end of the year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia appears to be expanding its ballistic missile factory to build larger solid-fuel missiles that could fly farther or carry heavier payloads, according to two US researchers who analysed \u200bmore than a year of commercial satellite images. More capable missiles could help Saudi Arabia to deter attacks by Iran and make its military more self-reliant, while possibly strengthening its position in a deadly \u200cconflict with Yemen\u2019s Tehran-backed Houthi fighters. But they risk fuelling a regional missile race and could deepen opposition in the US Congress to a US-Saudi civilian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}