


‘Unintended' blasts carried out in Yemen

Spokesman Mohammed al-Mansour, in comments published Friday by the Saudi Press Agency, chronicled eight incidents that rights groups said killed hundreds of civilians.
Among them was one in Mokha in which 65 civilians, including 10 kids, were killed. Al-Mansour said that the victims died as a result of an “unintended bombing based on inaccurate intelligence information.”
Regarding a second incident in which food trucks managed by the World Food Program were bombed last November, al-Mansour said the agency is to blame for not notifying the coalition.
The Saudi investigative committee's conclusions varied in regards to multiple incidents in which hospitals and medical facilities affiliated with the relief agency Doctors Without Borders were targeted. In one incident in January, the committee said that the coalition should have notified the agency before warplanes targeted rebels in Saada. In a second incident a month later, the committee said that the relief agency should not have placed their mobile clinic near a grouping of rebels in Taiz.
Overall, the committee concluded that there was no deliberate targeting of civilians and therefore no violation of international laws. The coalition's investigative committee, according to the SPA, is independent and composed of representatives from six countries in addition to a Yemeni.
Since March 2015, the war in Yemen has pitted the country's Shiite rebels against the internationally recognized government backed by the Saudi-led military coalition.