Coalition: Yemen strike targeted ballistic missile planners
An air strike on Thursday in north Yemen was a “legal military action” against elements that planned attacks on Saudi Arabian towns, the spokesman for the Arab Coalition told CNN news after reports that civilians had been killed.
Speaking by phone, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s government, Col Turki Al Maliki, insisted the attack carried out in Saada was a “legitimate military action” and “in accordance with international humanitarian law and customs”. He also accused the Houthis of recruiting and using children in the battlefields to cover for their actions.
“The attack carried out today by the coalition in Saada was against those people responsible for the ballistic missile attack last night … the allegation [that civilians were targeted] is coming from the Houthis, and it’s still an allegation,” Col Al Maliki said.
The previous evening, Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis, but shrapnel killed a Yemeni man and wounded 11 others in the Saudi city of Jazan.
The missile was fired from Amran province in north Yemen on Wednesday night, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The coalition said Wednesday’s attack brought the tally of rebel missiles launched since 2015, the year it joined the Yemeni government’s fight against the rebels, to 165.
Col Al Maliki said those responsible for firing ballistic missiles and targeting civilians would “get what they deserve”.
“The coalition will take all necessary measures against the terrorist, criminal acts of the terrorist Iranian-Houthi militia, such as recruiting child soldiers, throwing them in battlefields and using them as tools and covers to their terrorist acts,” Col Al Maliki said.
Yemen’s Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said that about 50 civilians had been killed and more than 70 wounded in an air strike that hit a bus, most of them were reported to be children. The International Committee for the Red Cross put the toll much lower.
Houthi-backed television stations broadcast footage of children receiving treatment in local hospitals.
There was no breakdown of the casualties and it was not immediately clear how many of the victims were on the bus itself and how many were pedestrians in the immediate area around it.
Col al Maliki said that the coalition had targeted Houthi militia members on the bus and said that they were the planners and operators of the missiles launch pads. He also said that these elements hid among civilians. When asked by CNN about children being killed in the incident, he said “Houthis are recruiting kids … why are the Houthi taking kids to the battlefield? Are they part of the elements responsible for the attack [last night]? I think that question should be asked of the Houthi and they need to answer it.”
Col Al Maliki said the coalition was not intentionally targeting civilians, saying the forces used “a high standard measure for targeting … civilian casualties are a loss to the coalition and we cannot accept high civilian casualties in Yemen.
“The civilian people are not our target, our strategic objective is to get back the legitimate government, which is recognized by the international community”, he said.