MILAN — The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of a hefty weapons package to Qatar, including a handful of long-range maritime surveillance drones and hundreds of missiles and bombs.
The Gulf nation has requested to buy eight MQ-9B remotely piloted aircraft and related equipment for an estimated cost of nearly $2 billion, a March 26 notice from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency stated.
The country’s military wish list also included 200 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, 300 500-lb general-purpose bombs, 110 Hellfire II missiles, Seaspray 7500 maritime radars and SAGE Electronic Support Measure systems from Leonardo.
The U.S. government approval comes five years after Qatar made an initial request to buy MQ-9Bs, nicknamed SeaGuardian. The order faced a significant holdup, which eventually led Qatari officials to grow irritated with the U.S. administration, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
While Qatar is in the habit of being secretive about its military purchases, glimpses of its equipment over the years have shown that it also operates six of the Turkish-made TB2 drones. It was among the first customers of these systems, seen for the first time in a Qatari military exercise in 2020.
These drones are regularly tracked by open-source intelligence sources as flying out from the Dukhan/Tamim Air Base, built in 2018 for the Qatar Emiri Air Force.
Task Force 99, a U.S. Air Force innovation unit, is also based at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where they focus on experimenting with unmanned systems.
In an interview with Defense News last month, the president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, David Alexander, said he was optimistic that the Trump government would accelerate previously delayed defense deals with Middle East governments.
The company executive added that he expected a sale of the SeaGuardians to the United Arab Emirates to resume under Trump and that they have offered a package deal to Saudi Arabia to acquire a number of these drones as well.
Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. She covers a wide range of topics related to military procurement and international security, and specializes in reporting on the aviation sector. She is based in Milan, Italy.
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