While the US and western powers condemn Russian airstrikes conducted in Aleppo, to the point where yesterday John Kerry accused Russia of "crimes against humanity", a parallel campaign waged by Saudi Arabia in Yemen gets little press coverage.
Perhaps as a test how far it can go without provoking a diplomatic rebuke, earlier today an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition on mourners in Sanaa on Saturday killed at least 82 people, the acting health minister in the Houthi-led administration in the Yemeni capital said. Ghazi Ismail told a news conference in Sanaa the number of people wounded in the attack was 534,
Reuters adds.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had prepared 300 body bags. Hundreds of body parts were found inside and outside the hall after the strike.
“The number of casualties from the air force of the Saudi-American aggression at the main hall in the capital Sanaa has risen to more than 450 dead and wounded,” the SABA news agency quotes Abdul-Salam al-Madani, who is a deputy to the Houthi health minister, as saying.
A missile tore through the hall of the building, leaving many dead and injured, Reuters reported earlier, citing eyewitnesses. According to the news agency, a medic said that he saw “mutilated and charred bodies,” adding that the funeral was being held for the deceased father of the Houthi rebels’ Interior Minister. Military and security officials from the rebel movement are among the victims, according to the outlet.
Among people at event was Jalal al-Rowaishan, interior minister appointed by Shiite Houthi rebels. Mayor of Sana’a Abdulkader Hilal was killed: al-Yeman al- Youm TV, a station loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, reported. Some victims were leaders of Shiite Houthis or members of party of Ali Abdullah Saleh: various media including AP.
Images of a destroyed building, partly still aflame, showed the extent of the devastation in the aftermath of the strike.
The tensions in Yemen spiraled after President Ali Abdullah Saleh was deposed in 2012. In response, his Houthi supporters seized the capital city of Sanaa in 2014, before advanced to the south and seizing large parts of Yemen, forcing current Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile. In March of 2015, the Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes in order to stop Houthi advances and restore Hadi to power.
By late summer of that year, Saudi-led forces had launched a ground operation as well.
As
RT reports, one of the deadliest attacks occurred after the coalition’s aircraft attacked a crowded marketplace in Mastaba, a village in Yemen’s northern Hajja governorate in April. The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, put the death toll from that airstrike at 119, including 22 children. In August, at least 11 people were killed and 19 injured in an airstrike that targeted a hospital in northwestern Hajjah province, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
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The attack comes in the aftermath of the
Wikileaks revelation of the "Podesta Files" which among other topics, touched on Hillary's previously undisclosed private comments about Saudi Arabia, among which her admission to a Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner in 2014 that "the Saudis have exported more extreme ideology than any other place on earth over the course of the last 30 years.” "
Hillary Clinton Said The Saudis Opposed The Muslim Brotherhood, “Which Is Kind Of Ironic Since The Saudis Have Exported More Extreme Ideology Than Any Other Place On Earth Over The Course Of The Last 30 Years.” “And they are getting a lot of help from the Saudis to the Emiratis—to go back to our original discussion—because the Saudis and the Emiratis see the Muslim Brotherhood as threatening to them, which is kind of ironic since the Saudis have exported more extreme ideology than any other place on earth over the course of the last 30 years.” [2014 Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner, 10/28/13]
As well as her admission that the "Saudis have been shipping large amounts of weapons—and pretty indiscriminately—not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future, "
Hillary Clinton Said She Favored “More Robust, Covert Action” In Syria But Said Things Have Been “Complicated By The Fact That The Saudis And Others Are Shipping Large Amounts Of Weapons—And Pretty Indiscriminately.” “Now, there is another group, which basically argued we do have a national interest in this because refugee flows, jihadist recruitment, giving of large parts of Syria over to uncontrollable groups that threaten Israel, Jordan and others, through conventional means is very much against our interests, and the debate has been can you really influence that? Some of us thought, perhaps, we could, with a more robust, covert action trying to vet, identify, train and arm cadres of rebels that would at least have the firepower to be able to protect themselves against both Assad and the Al-Qaeda-related jihadist groups that have, unfortunately, been attracted to Syria. That’s been complicated by the fact that the Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons—and pretty indiscriminately—not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future, but this is another one of those very tough analytical problems.” [2014 Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner, 10/28/13]
She also stated that the Saudi regime is not the "stablest you can find on the planet" and is fraught with all kinds of problems:
Hillary Clinton Said The “Saudis In Particular Are Not Necessarily The Stablest Regimes That You Can Find On The Planet.” “So mutually assured destruction as we had with Europe in the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s until the fall of the Soviet Union is much harder to do with the gulf states and it will be unlikely to occur because they will think that they have to defend themselves. And they will get into the business of nuclear weapons, and these are—the Saudis in particular are not necessarily the stablest regimes that you can find on the planet. So it’s fraught with all kinds of problems.” [ Speech to Goldman Sachs, 2013 IBD Ceo Annual Conference, 6/4/13
As a result of the cozy relationship between Saudi and the US, we are confident there will be little public outcry against this latest deadly attack by the Saudi regime, as all focus remains on Russia.
