The US government, through the State Department, notified Congress of the potential sale to Kuwait of MQ-9B unmanned combat aircraft worth $1.96 billion, in a giant “package” that, in addition to the eight Reapers, includes hundreds of bombs, dozens of missiles, radars, ground-based satellite communication systems and related equipment, along with US technical support.
Which specifically the “package” includes among others 200 sets of conversion of KMU-572 bombs into self-guided JDAM GBU-38 or Laser JDAM GBU-54, 300 “cores” of 500-pound BLU-111 bombs for the above, 100 sets of MXU-650 guided bombs GBU-12 Paveway II, 110 AGM-114R2 Hellfire II, 10 Lynx AN/APY-8 SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radars) radars, etc.
If the potential sale is completed, it will mark the first supply of unmanned aerial vehicles produced by General Atomics in the Middle East.
Recall that Qatar had first requested the armed drones in 2020, but the Biden administration had obstructed it to the point that the Emirate finally decided not to pursue the sale further.
The same set of requests also included 50 F-35As, which were also “frozen”.
The approval for the MQ-9Bs may signal the resumption of negotiations for the JSFs.
