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The role of the anti-Qadhafi camp’s most prominent Arab supporters is likely to come under new scrutiny, as sources suggest that Abu Dhabi could play a big role in helping the Benghazi rebels to resume oil production

Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company (KGL) has signed a logistics deal worth up to $1.38bn with the US Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency. KGL’s 99%-owned subsidiary KGL Catering Company will provide food and logistics services for more than 20,000 US military personnel stationed in Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan as part of a 24-month contract, which is renewable for up to 60 months.

The Iraqi government condemned “in the strongest possible terms” a Turkish drone strike on a refugee camp near Makhmur on 15 April, in which two women died and at least four others were injured. The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the action by Ankara violated its sovereignty and represented a “grave violation of international humanitarian law”.

The US Department of Defence (Pentagon) in late January said Lockheed Martin Corporation had been awarded a $92.7m modification to its foreign military sales (FMS) Patriot missile support contract. Lockheed will conduct a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) and Missile Segment Enhancement Multi-Band Radio Frequency Data Link obsolescence redesign, the Pentagon said. Completion of the contract is scheduled by January 2020. The award follows a separate $1.1bn US Army contract, awarded in December, that included the sale of PAC-3 technology to Qatar, along with Saudi Arabia and Korea.

Lieutenant General Hamad Thani Al-Rumaithi, chief of staff of the UAE Armed Forces, visited his troops in Yemen in late August and attended the reopening of airports at Aden and Riyan in Hadhramaut. Emirati troops continue to operate in southern Yemen, despite a series of confusing announcements in June that suggested the country was withdrawing from the conflict.

BAE Systems confirmed on 18 September that its deal to supply 24 Typhoon aircraft to the Qatar Emiri Air Force is to go ahead, after Doha made the first payment on the £5bn ($6.6bn) contract. The deal was signed in December 2017 and amended in June to include nine Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer aircraft. It also includes a range of bespoke support and training packages. Deliveries of the first Typhoon and Hawk aircraft are expected to start in 2022.

Senior military figures from Kuwait and the UAE visited Khartoum in early February for talks on defence co-operation. First there was UAE chief-of-staff Lieutenant General Hamad Mohammed Thani Al-Rumaithi, who met President Oman Al-Bashir, defence minister Lieutenant General Awad Mohammad Ahmad and others. While there he was awarded the Al Neelain Order, first class.

A pincer movement is under way to eventually take the jewel in IS’s Iraqi crown, Mosul, and it will be supported by more than 500 additional US troops. Iraqi troops, with the usual US-led coalition air support, on 9 July captured Qayara airbase (‘Q-West’), 40 miles from Mosul, which will be used as a staging ground for operations to retake the city. IS still occupies the nearby town of Qayara.

The Kuwait Air Force (KAF) will take delivery of its first batch of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to comments by KAF commander Air Vice-Marshal Adnan Al-Fadhli, on 4 November. Kuwait has 28 of the planes on order. The Typhoon has proved to be popular among Gulf governments, with other customers including Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The US Treasury sanctioned suspected Hizbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq on 19 November, saying he was responsible for numerous attacks against coalition forces in Iraq, including one which killed five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007. The decision came just three days after Daqduq was freed by Iraqi authorities, following a court acquittal earlier this year. On his release, Daqduq flew to Lebanon.

Minister of state for defence affairs Major General Hamad Bin Ali Al-Attiyah held talks with visiting French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and a delegation on 22 September. It provided an opportunity for Major General Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Maliki and Brigadier General Pascal Roux to sign the technical protocol for a joint training programme. Also present were Qatar Armed Forces chief of staff Major General Ghanim Bin Shaheen Al-Ghanim and French ambassador Eric Chevallier.

Bahrain has begun a second phase of compensation payments totalling around $6m to the families of 35 people killed during the 2011 uprising. The payments relate to deaths described in detail in the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report, whose recommendations Manama has been under pressure to implement.

Sierra Leone has sent a delegation to work at the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC) headquarters in Riyadh, bringing the total number of countries with permanent delegates to 21. The organisation was set up at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in December 2015, but has developed only slowly since then. IMCTC has 41 members drawn from around the Gulf, the wider Middle East, Africa and Asia.

When Qatar bought 12 Dassault Mirage 2000-5 combat aircraft in the late 1990s it was catapulted into pole position as the world’s highest per capita defence spender. Nearly ten years after the first Mirages

Iran has completed work on its newest naval base at Pasabandar, on the Gulf of Oman in the south-east of the country, according to Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari. The base has been developed along with two new naval zones, Velayat-e-Jask and Nabovvat, located further up the coast at Konarak.