But, he acknowledged that “considerable work remains to be done” with the Royal Saudi Armed Forces’ targeting procedures and investigative capacity. “America’s alliances and partnerships are our greatest asset, and so we are committed to standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our key partners in the Middle East,” said Army Maj. decision to end aerial refueling for coalition aircraft in 2018 and the ongoing trainings to reduce civilian casualties.
When presented with the findings, the Defense and State departments pointed to the steps the Biden administration had taken to end the war in Yemen, the U.S. A Qatar official familiar with the country’s role in Yemen told The Post that Qatar left the coalition in June 2017, but they did not answer questions about the country’s involvement in the air raids over Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition and every member state except Qatar did not respond to The Post’s request for comment on the report’s findings. Thus for certain squadrons, The Post and SFM could only determine probability because every coalition country has at least two airstrike squadrons flying the same type of plane. Sales announcements never name specific squadrons that will benefit, only a type of plane or piece of equipment being sold. In some instances, The Post and SFM could only determine that certain squadrons were likely to have benefited from U.S. “For most coalition countries, there is no way for to support their planes without supporting squadrons that may be linked to airstrikes that human rights groups say are apparent war crimes,” said Tony Wilson, the director of Security Force Monitor. support, proving the universe of squadrons carrying out airstrikes is a narrow and knowable one. assistance, The Post-SFM analysis identified specific airstrike squadrons that received U.S. contracts were awarded to individual Saudi and UAE squadrons since the war began.ĭespite Pentagon statements that it is difficult to pinpoint which units in foreign militaries receive U.S.
assistance.Īn analysis of public contract announcements shows that the United States provided arms, training or maintenance support to the majority of the fighter jet squadrons in the campaign. More than half of the squadrons that participated in the air war came from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - the two countries that carried out the majority of the air raids and receive substantial U.S. The Post and SFM reviewed more than 3,000 publicly available images, news releases, media reports and videos identifying for the first time 19 fighter jet squadrons that took part in the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen. companies, and by pilots who were trained by the U.S. support for the Saudi-led air campaign, revealing that a substantial portion of the air raids were carried out by jets developed, maintained and sold by U.S. New analysis by The Washington Post and Security Force Monitor at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute (SFM) provides the most complete picture yet of the depth and breadth of U.S. support for the Saudi war effort, which has been criticized by human rights groups and some in Congress, began during the Obama administration and has continued in fits and starts for seven years. The indiscriminate bombings have become a hallmark of the Yemen war, drawing international scrutiny of the countries participating in the air campaign, and those arming them, including the United States. While Russia’s bombings of a maternity hospital and other civilian targets in Ukraine have drawn widespread public indignation as war crimes, thousands of similar strikes have taken place against Yemeni civilians. The devastating air campaign alone - carried out by a Saudi-led coalition - has killed almost 24,000 people, a number that includes combatants and nearly 9,000 civilians, according to conservative estimates by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), which monitors war zones around the world. Hundreds of thousands have died from the fighting or its indirect consequences, such as hunger, the United Nations says. It was the latest uptick in bombing during a grinding, and often overlooked, civil war that has upended the lives of Yemeni civilians for the better part of a decade and spawned one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. As global attention focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, the Saudi-led coalition carried out more than 150 airstrikes on civilian targets in Yemen, including homes, hospitals and communication towers, according to the Yemen Data Project.