Saudi air force team in Greece to take part in INIOCHOS drill

Members of the Royal Saudi Air Force have arrived at the Greek Andravida Air Base to take part in joint exercises involving a number of countries, the Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense said on Friday.

The RSAF team will be participating in the annual medium-scale exercise INIOCHOS 2024 air drill.

Deployment for the exercise began on April 1 and will continue until Sunday, while the secondary execution phase will begin next Monday and continue until April 18, the Hellenic Air Force said in a statement.

Phase three of the drill, force redeployment, takes place from April 19-21.

INIOCHOS 2024 is one of the largest military exercises on the European continent.

The RSAF will be participating with six Typhoon aircraft and all their air, technical, and support crews, the Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense said.

The RSAF will aim to raise its readiness and combat-efficiency levels; exchange and gain expertise of air, technical, and support crews to simulate a real war environment; and train on planning and carrying out complex air operations in an environment composed of various multinational forces, the ministry added.

The planning, execution and debriefing of all missions will be supervised by the HAF Fighter Weapons School, and “missions cover the full spectrum of air operations performed by HAF.”

The drill includes offensive, defensive and strategic counterair operations. It also comprises counterland and maritime operations, as well as practice at combat search and rescue operations.

Participating countries, alongside HAF aircraft, include Cyprus, France, Montenegro, Qatar, Romania, Spain, the UK, and the US.

The HAF said: “Austria and Portugal will participate with intel personnel and special forces, while Germany will send a group of observers.”

It added that the number of fighter aircraft and helicopters involved is the largest since the inception of the INIOCHOS exercises in the 1980s.