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Report: Saudi coalition used US bomb in Yemen market strike Saudi coalition used US bombs in obliterating Yemen market
(about 4 hours later)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A Saudi-led coalition battling Shiite rebels and their allies in Yemen used U.S.-supplied bombs in an airstrike last month on a market that killed at least 119 people, a human rights group said Thursday, further highlighting American involvement in the conflict. CAIRO — A Saudi-led coalition battling Shiite rebels and their allies in Yemen used U.S.-supplied bombs in an airstrike last month on a market that killed at least 119 people, a human rights group said Thursday, further highlighting American involvement in the conflict.
The March 15 bombing targeting the northwestern town of Mastaba marked the second-deadliest airstrike conducted by the Saudi-helmed campaign since it began its war in March 2015. Condemned by the United Nations, the strike also wounded at least 47 people and left charred bodies lying next to flour sacks and twisted metal. The March 15 bombing targeting the northwestern town of Mastaba marked the second-deadliest airstrike of the year-long Saudi-helmed campaign — and the results were horrific. Survivors said the outdoor market, next to a shantytown inhabited largely by people who fled there from other battle zones, was obliterated by double strikes that came about 10 minutes apart, with mangled bodies thrown hundreds of yards away.
Human Rights Watch said its investigators traveled to the town in Yemen’s Hajja province, controlled by the Shiite rebels known as Houthis. There, the group said it found fragments of a 900-kilogram (2,000-pound) MK-84 bomb and a kind of satellite-guidance hardware known as a JDAM, which together are known as a GBU-31 bomb. “I saw the sky raining ball of black fire,” recalled a 30-year-old gas worker Omar Mallah, whose brother and several other relatives were killed.
Human Rights Watch said its investigators traveled to the town in Yemen’s northwestern Hajja province, controlled by the Shiite rebels known as Houthis. There, the group said it found fragments of a 900-kilogram (2,000-pound) MK-84 bomb and a kind of satellite-guidance hardware known as a JDAM, which together are known as a GBU-31 bomb.
The group said the bomb, as well as its guidance equipment, was supplied by the U.S. Their finding matched an earlier report by British television channel ITV, which said its journalists found remnants of what likely was another MK-84 bomb and a different kind of satellite guiding system supplied by the United States.The group said the bomb, as well as its guidance equipment, was supplied by the U.S. Their finding matched an earlier report by British television channel ITV, which said its journalists found remnants of what likely was another MK-84 bomb and a different kind of satellite guiding system supplied by the United States.
“One of the deadliest strikes against civilians in Yemen’s yearlong war involved U.S.-supplied weapons, illustrating tragically why countries should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia,” Priyanka Motaparthy, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “The U.S. and other coalition allies should send a clear message to Saudi Arabia that they want no part in unlawful killings of civilians.”“One of the deadliest strikes against civilians in Yemen’s yearlong war involved U.S.-supplied weapons, illustrating tragically why countries should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia,” Priyanka Motaparthy, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “The U.S. and other coalition allies should send a clear message to Saudi Arabia that they want no part in unlawful killings of civilians.”
U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military action in the Mideast, declined to comment on specifics about the bombing, saying that the “selection and final vetting of targets in the campaign are made by the members of the Saudi-led coalition, not the United States.” Rights groups have repeatedly warned that U.S. and European weapons sold to Saudi Arabia could be used in strikes violating international law. Saudi Arabia and its allies launched their air campaign in March 2015 aiming to stop advances by the rebels, known as Houthis, who had driven the government out of the capital.
Since then, fighting between the rebels and Saudi-backed factions and airstrikes have killed at least 9,000 people, an estimated 3,000 of them civilians, according to the U.N., which says at least 60 percent of the civilian deaths come from strikes, which have often hit crowded areas including markets, hospitals, factories, schools and residential districts. Coalition officials dispute those figures. The war has displaced 2.4 million people and caused widespread malnutrition.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military action in the Mideast, declined to comment on specifics about the Mastaba bombing, saying that the “selection and final vetting of targets in the campaign are made by the members of the Saudi-led coalition, not the United States.”
“The U.S. is confident that the information that we relay and noncombat support we provide to Saudi Arabia and other coalition members is sound and provides them the best options for military success consistent with international norms and specifically mitigating the potential for civilian casualties,” U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kyle Raines, a Central Command spokesman, said in a statement to The Associated Press.“The U.S. is confident that the information that we relay and noncombat support we provide to Saudi Arabia and other coalition members is sound and provides them the best options for military success consistent with international norms and specifically mitigating the potential for civilian casualties,” U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kyle Raines, a Central Command spokesman, said in a statement to The Associated Press.
The U.S. is believed to offer the Saudi-led coalition satellite images and other intelligence about Yemen to guide its campaign.The U.S. is believed to offer the Saudi-led coalition satellite images and other intelligence about Yemen to guide its campaign.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Bahrain on a trip to the Gulf island nation, also declined to comment specifically on the report while speaking to reporters Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, asked about the report during a visit to Bahrain, said, “I don’t have any solid information, any documentation with respect to what weapon might have been used.”
“I don’t have any solid information, any documentation with respect to what weapon might have been used,” Kerry said. “Whatever weapons are being used, our preference is that all shooting stops,” he said.
Kerry said he remained involved in efforts to secure a cease-fire in the war. Saudi officials have said they were investigating the strike, though they previously insisted most of the casualties were Houthi combatants.
“Whatever weapons are being used, our preference is that all shooting stops,” Kerry said. However, he also criticized Yemen’s internationally recognized president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, for decisions in the “last few hours” that have set back mediation efforts. The American diplomat did not elaborate. Coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri sent the AP a map via Whatsapp showing three red circles: One identified as a Houthi gathering position, a second as a small market adjacent to the Houthi position and a third as the large market. He said the airstrikes hit the small market next to Houthi gathering because this is where the militants were buying qat, a leaf chewed by Yemenis.
Hadi on Sunday fired his vice president and the head of his Cabinet, Khaled Bahah, over what he described as shortcomings in the performance of his government in exile. The Saudi-led coalition that supports Hadi has yet to retake Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which the Houthis seized in September 2014. The Human Rights Watch report said there was a Houthi checkpoint about 250 yards (meters) from the market. It cited witnesses saying 10 Houthi fighters were among the dead in the market.
Saudi officials previously said they were investigating the strike, though they previously insisted most of the casualties were Houthi combatants. At Mastaba, relatives of several victims recounted to the AP a horrific scene, searching for days for body parts strewn over a wide area, over trees and rooftops, some as far as a sports center about a quarter-mile (half kilometer) away. Many were eventually buried in a nearby mass grave.
The U.S. has backed the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, where suspected American drones continue to target alleged members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. In November, the U.S. approved a $1.29 billion rearming program for Saudi Arabia, including thousands of similar bombs. Mastaba was considered a safe haven for those fleeing towns closer to the Saudi border that were heavily pounded in airstrikes. Impoverished residents of a nearby slum of mud-brick houses often sent their children to work in the qat market. UNICEF said 22 children were among the dead in the strikes.
The air campaign waged by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has been increasingly criticized by human rights activists over civilian deaths. Airstrikes account for 60 percent of the 3,200 civilians killed in the conflict, according to the U.N., which has criticized coalition strikes that have hit markets, clinics and hospitals. The timing of the airstrikes, at a time when people stock up on qat before lunchtime, contributed to the high death toll. Witnesses said that as rescuers came in to help victims of the first strike, the second strike hit.
The war in Yemen has killed over 6,000 people in total and left more than 80 percent of Yemenis in dire need of food, water and other aid as a result of the conflict in the Arab world’s poorest country, the U.N. has said. Hassan Mafafi said it took him a whole day to locate one piece of remains from his 18-year-old son, Abdel-Rahman. He found his right leg, which he recognized from a scar marking an old axe wound. Choking back tears, he said he still couldn’t bring himself to look at his son’s picture tucked in his wallet.
Mansour al-Bakili said he collected 18 pieces he believed were body parts of his son, Mohammed. “We put them all in cloth and buried them,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper in Manama, Bahrain, contributed to this report. Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper in Manama, Bahrain, contributed to this report.
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jon-gambrell . Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.