Ali paused and shook his head. “Tanks obviously make more sense, but whose and from where? The Qatari tanks were under constant surveillance, and no other country has a land border anywhere near. American Marines might have hovercraft capable of landing tanks on the nearby beaches, but no other country does.”
“Drones have crisscrossed Qatar ever since our blockading force arrived at the border years ago. There’s no way massed artillery capable of such a devastating attack could have been missed, no matter what some of the survivors are saying.”
Ali nodded in Khaled’s direction. “That leaves an air attack, which I recognize is Khaled’s field of expertise. I will only say that I think bombing runs by enemy aircraft are easy to rule out, since they would have been detected by what I understand is our highly capable radar network. I think that leaves cruise missiles. I understand Iran has them, but will defer to Khaled on whether they could account for the damage we sustained in this attack.
“We are already doing the obvious — providing aid to survivors of the attack, sifting through the battlefield to discover how the attack was carried out, and to prove what I think is clear, that Iran was the attacker. If so, we need to prepare a military and diplomatic response to Iran’s aggression, hopefully with American support. I think reestablishing the blockade will have to wait until we’ve dealt with the missile threat in Yemen. However, since the blockade force was in charge of deploying and monitoring the drones that had been keeping an eye on Qatar’s Leopard tanks, we need to get replacements up and their feed monitored as soon as we can, though I think our response to the attack should be the top priority.”
Ali grimaced. “I know it’s not much, but that’s my best based on what we know now.”
The Crown Prince nodded, and turned to Khaled, who had clearly been displeased when Ali’s comments had included reference to a possible air attack.
Khaled clearly struggled to find another way to say it, but in the end he had no choice.
“I agree with Ali. There is only one reasonable conclusion. The force blockading Qatar has been struck by Iranian cruise missiles. First, some history.”
Khalid signaled to one of his aides, and a screen dropped at the front of the conference room.
Great, Ali thought. Just what we need in our hour of crisis — PowerPoint slides. When he had gone to the Armor School, two speakers had received by far the most enthusiastic standing ovations. The first had been Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State.
The second had been a speaker who began his presentation with the words, “I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t have any PowerPoint slides to go with this talk.”
Khaled continued, “Iran first publicly displayed a domestically produced cruise missile in 2015 called the Soumar, based on the Russian Kh-55 cruise missiles Iran purchased from Ukraine over a decade earlier. With a range of between two and three thousand kilometers, it could have easily struck our forces from a base anywhere in Iran. An improved air-launched cruise missile was displayed in Iran’s Army Day parade in 2018, which included the capability to be guided to its target by a weapons operator up to one hundred kilometers after launch.”
Khaled clicked on slides with photos of each missile to illustrate his points.
Ali had to grudgingly admit that as long as Khaled kept the slides to that purpose, they were actually useful. Next a winged drone replaced the Soumar on the screen.
“Another possibility to consider is a drone attack. The Iranians have produced several, but as far as we know only the Shahed 129 model has actually fired a missile that hit a target, Syrian rebel forces in 2016. The next year the Americans shot down Shahed 129s that were attempting to attack coalition forces twice, both times with F-15s.”
Khaled clicked again and a similar drone appeared, this time with a bulbous nose.
“This variant has supposedly added satellite control to the drone’s capabilities. However, though Iran has launched several small satellites, the Americans advise that none of them could possibly provide the basis for successfully controlling a drone.”
Ali nodded. "Too small to contain the necessary communications hardware?”
Khalid smiled. “Precisely. And without satellite control, there’s no way the drones could have been guided to attack our forces from Iran.”
Ali frowned. "Are we so sure of the Americans’ dismissal of Iran’s space program? Maybe the Iranians have capabilities they haven’t detected.”
Khalid laughed, and looked at his notes. “Well, to be fair, they have successfully launched and returned two monkeys, a rodent, a turtle, and several worms from suborbital flights. Sadly, another monkey did not survive its encounter with Iranian space technology.”
Seeing from the Crown Prince’s expression that he didn’t appreciate the humor, Khaled quickly added, “Besides, even fully loaded Iran’s entire drone force couldn’t have delivered the explosive payload used against our forces.”
Khaled clicked his remote again and an image of parked M1A2 tanks inside a hardened hangar filled the screen.
“We should also ask why Iran would have picked our blockade force at the Qatari border as a target. I think the answer is that it was a target of opportunity. We publicly announced we were sending more tanks to reinforce the blockade as a warning to the Qataris not to think about taking advantage of our heavy engagement in Yemen. The only armored force of even greater size is well protected here in Riyadh, as this slide shows. The blockade force was exposed, and easy to target.”
A dead silence descended on the conference room, and every head turned to Ali.
“It’s true. I’ve read the reports, and late at night when the attack occurred all of the tanks and APCs were parked in the open. None were on patrol.
Colonel Barazi was a good man, and I picked him myself for this command. I had ordered that some of our armor was to be on patrol at all times. I understand that didn’t happen because we ran short of tankers to run fuel to the blockade force due to the higher priority we set for the forces in Yemen.”
Ali paused. “The irony of this disaster having been made even worse by a lack of fuel in the country leading the world in petroleum exports has not escaped me. I have already offered my resignation to the Defense Minister, who has refused it.”
The Crown Prince, who also served as Defense Minister, nodded. “That’s right. It’s precisely at times of crisis like this that we need our most experienced commanders.”
Then the Crown Prince shook his head, obviously unhappy with both the situation and their limited information to address it. “Very well. Until we’re able to retrieve and analyze the weapons debris from the attack, we will plan on the basis that this was an Iranian cruise missile attack, launched from Iran.
So, your suggested response, Khaled?”
Khaled clicked his remote control again, and another missile filled the screen, this time one with Saudi markings.
“I suggest that we trade Iran missile for missile. The DF-21s we purchased from China have the range to strike any target we choose inside Iran. I have a list of suggested military targets for your review, with a high priority on bases suspected of housing the Soumar missiles that were probably used to attack us. We have a dozen mobile launchers that came with the DF-3 missiles we bought from China earlier, and those would work as a launch platform for the DF-21s.”
The Crown Prince grunted, and shook his head. “I thought you might suggest that, and have already discussed the DF-21 option with His Majesty.
He is unhappy with it for two reasons. First, we don’t have many of them, and if we use them now we won’t have a credible ballistic missile deterrent.
He knows as well as the rest of you do that the other option, the DF-3s, are old, inaccurate and with their liquid fuel almost as dangerous to us as to the Iranians. Second, we’ve never test fired either missile. How sure are we that the DF-21s we fire will go where they’re aimed?”