United States approves $1.29 billion sale of smart bombs to Saudi Arabia

“The proposed sale augments Saudi Arabia’s capability to meet current and future threats from potential adversaries during combat operations”, the DSCA said.

The arms deal will proceed unless Congress moves to block it in the next 30 days. HRW believes the U.S. should halt the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia until these apparently unlawful strikes are investigated. “Providing the Saudis with more bombs under these circumstances is a recipe for greater civilian deaths, for which the United States will be partially responsible”.

Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by a coalition led by the Saudi regime for almost eight months.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition in March began carrying out air strikes against military bases and arms depots of the Shiite Houthi gunmen, and later sent in thousands of ground troops from UAE, Qatar and different nationalities to back pro-Hadi forces.

Pro-Hadi forces and their coalition allies pushed north toward Taiz overnight, capturing the village of Waziaa, southwest of the city, military sources said.

Human Rights Watch condemned the Houthis this week for their use of “banned antipersonnel landmines, causing multiple new civilian casualties”.

The Iranian minister once again reaffirmed the need for an end to the disastrous situation in Yemen, saying that months of aggression and military approaches have led to nothing but the destruction of Yemen’s infrastructures and the slaughter of innocent people in this country. The United Kingdom and France have also made recent military sales to Saudi Arabia. In October this year, the USA government approved an $11 billion sale to Saudi Arabia for up to four Lockheed Martin Corp.’s warships, along with weapons, training and logistics support. This cooperation, it said, could make U.S. forces “responsible for possible laws-of-war violations by the coalition”. “Saudi disregard for the requirements of the laws of war makes enablers of those countries providing the weapons”.