Local Editor
Saudi Arabia ranked fourth among twelve countries that spend the highest portion of their gross domestic product (GDP) on the military.
According to the American news website Business Insider, the Kingdom was ranked in fourth place, allocating 7.98% of GDP on its armed forces.
South Sudan, Iraq, and Oman came in first, second and third places.
Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of mainly Gulf Arab states thay has been launching a destructive military campaign against Yemen since March 2015 to reinstate former president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and crush the Houthi movement.
In May, oil-rich Saudi Arabia signed a $110 billion weapons deal with the United States, which included items that had been put on hold under the Obama administration due to concerns about civilian deaths in Riyadh's military aggression on Yemen.
The British government has also been criticized for continuing to sell arms to Saudi, despite civilian deaths in Yemeni raids.
The aggression has seriously damaged the country’s infrastructure. Local Yemeni sources have put the death toll from the Saudi war at over 12,000, including many women and children.
Source: Yemenwatch.net
