The US is refueling Saudi fighter jets as part of its support for Riyadh’s war in Yemen, a US official has told Al Jazeera, marking an escalation of US involvement in the conflict.
The US refueling of Saudi warplanes was one of the most controversial aspects of US involvement in the war in Yemen after it began in 2015, as the Saudi-led coalition fighting against Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, was notorious for bombing civilian targets.
The first Trump administration ended the practice of refueling Saudi jets involved in the war in Yemen in November 2018, several months after Saudi Arabia bombed a school bus in the Saada province of northern Yemen, killing at least 40 children, a strike that was carried out with a US-supplied bomb.
At the time, the Trump administration didn’t link ending the refueling to the civilian casualties since it continued supporting the war in other ways, but framed the move as a Saudi decision to “use the Coalition’s own military capabilities to conduct inflight refueling in support of its operations in Yemen.”
However, the move was really seen as an effort to pre-empt action from Congress, as lawmakers were threatening to take action over the refueling amid outrage over the Saudi killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which occurred in October of 2018. The following year, both the House and Senate passed a War Powers Resolution to end US intelligence and other support for the Saudi war, but President Trump vetoed the legislation.
After the first Trump administration stopped refueling Saudi warplanes, Congress codified the policy into US law, repeatedly prohibiting the refueling of aircraft involved in the war in Yemen through amendments in successive National Defense Authorization Acts. The prohibition was last included in the 2024 NDAA, which extended the ban for one year, meaning it’s not currently in effect.
The news that the US has resumed refueling Saudi jets comes as Saudi-backed forces have announced a major offensive meant to reverse recent gains made by Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia has escalated airstrikes, which are killing an increasing number of civilians.
Sources told The New York Times that, on top of refueling Saudi warplanes, the US also has more than 200 intelligence and military analysts assisting the Saudi government in command centers inside the kingdom, helping to analyze and select targets in Yemen. So far, the US has refrained from launching direct airstrikes in Yemen as a US-Ansar Allah ceasefire reached in May 2025 appears to remain in effect.
