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Feb 19, 2021

US Defense Sec­re­tary Lloyd Austin spoke with Sau­di Arabia’s de fac­to ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by phone on Thurs­day to con­vey Washington’s con­tin­ued sup­port for the kingdom’s defense against Houthi attacks ema­nat­ing from Yemen.

The Pen­ta­gon chief “under­scored Sau­di Arabia’s role as a pil­lar of the region­al secu­ri­ty archi­tec­ture in the Mid­dle East and the impor­tance of shar­ing the respon­si­bil­i­ty of region­al secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty,” the Defense Depart­ment said in a press release.

The call came two days after White House spokesper­son Jen Psa­ki said that Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s future cor­re­spon­dence with …