Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
About a dozen Green Berets came to Saudi Arabia’s shared border in December to help the kingdom’s troops fight Yemeni rebels who “pose no direct threat to the United States,” The New York Times reports. Sources told the newspaper the troops are “helping locate and destroy” Houthi missiles and launch sites, as well as “training Saudi ground troops to secure their border.” The previously undisclosed presence of U.S. commandos in the region is contrary to what the Pentagon has said previously, claiming that U.S. involvement in Saudi was limited to “refueling, logistics, and general intelligence sharing.” The renewed request for American support from the Saudis reportedly came just weeks before the troops arrived, after the Saudis intercepted a Houthi missile flying over the capital Riyadh.