Coalition forces made three errors in Yemen attacks, investigation team finds
But other incidents criticized by rights groups involved legitimate military targets
However, other incidents that led to critical reports by rights groups and aid agencies involved attacks on legitimate military targets, Al-Mansour said.
The spokesman revealed new details about a coalition strike on Al-Yamani Dairy and Beverage Factory in Hodeidah, which killed 20 people and injured 59, and was reported on by the High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2015.
He said the forces of the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh used a building 200 meters away as a command and control center.
Al-Mansour said Houthi rebels had threatened a commercial organization that their factory would be bombed in the same way as the Hodeidah dairy unless they paid a large sum of money. He said this proved that the Houthis bombed commercial premises and tried to blame the coalition.
The spokesman said coalition air forces had mistakenly attacked a well-drilling rig in the village of Beit Saadan in the Arhab area north of Sanaa, an agricultural area where it was easy to hide ballistic missile launchers.
“Confusion occurred during visual monitoring because the rig contains a crane similar to and close to the form of ballistic missile launchers,” he said.
JIAT also admitted an error when a guided bomb veered off its target, a weapons store in Sanaa, and hit a nearby building belonging to the University of Saba. The building and some houses were damaged.
“The coalition forces should provide appropriate humanitarian assistance for the unintentional error that occurred as a result of a technical defect in the aircraft systems,” Al-Mansour said.
Al-Mansour admitted that another technical error in an aircraft’s systems led to the deviation of a bomb aimed at a Houthi headquarters building in Al-Sabaeen neighborhood of Sanaa. The bomb damaged a house 85 meters away.
On the targeting of an ambulance operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres, Al-Mansour said the vehicle had stopped in front of a weapons store that had been targeted, and it appeared that people were loading weapons and ammunition into the vehicle.
“It was not clear that the vehicle was an ambulance. The vehicle did not have any sign that it had a medical function.”
However, the investigation team said it was not confirmed that the coalition air force targeted the UNDP office in Aden on June 28, 2015. The target was a building more than 11km away, and the coalition used guided bombs that hit the target precisely.
Al-Mansour said the JIAT had reviewed Amnesty International’s report into an air strike on the Shaimaa Educational Complex for girls in Hodeidah on August 27, 2015, in which two people died.
“JIAT found that the coalition air forces, based on intelligence, confirmed the presence of armed Houthi militia inside some buildings of the complex, which they use as a gathering point and command and control center, thus legal protection of the compound is waived.”
As for reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch on air strikes at the Coca-Cola factory in Sanaa in which five people were injured, JIAT confirmed the soundness of the procedures followed by the coalition air forces. The factory had been turned into a Scud missile launcher for attacks on Saudi territory, and was therefore a military target.
Al-Mansour also said a house targeted in Dharwan district in Dhamar province turned out to be a weapons store.
Regarding the shelling of the Dar Al-Nour center for the care of the blind in Sanaa, Al-Mansour said the Houthis used the building as headquarters for their forces.
And in reference to attacks on Al-Hayat Medical Center in Saada, Al-Qadisiyah School in Hodeidah and the Teachers’ Union building in Amran, all the actions of the coalition forces were correct and the targets were all military facilities used by the Houthi and Saleh forces.
JEDDAH: The forces of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen made three errors that resulted in civilian injuries and loss of life, Mansour Ahmed Al-Mansour, the spokesman for the Joint Incidents Assessment Team ( JIAT), acknowledged on Tuesday.