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Air strikes on Yemen kill 31 civilians after Saudi jet crash
DUBAI, Feb 16, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Thirty-one people were killed in air
strikes on Yemen Saturday, the United Nations said, the victims of an
apparent Saudi-led retaliation after Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed to have
shot down one of its jets.
The Tornado aircraft came down Friday in northern Al-Jawf province during
an operation to support government forces, a rare shooting down that prompted
operations in the area by a Saudi-led military coalition fighting the rebels.
The deadly violence follows an upsurge in fighting in northern Yemen
between the warring parties that threatens to worsen the war-battered
country’s humanitarian crisis.
“Preliminary field reports indicate that on 15 February as many as 31
civilians were killed and 12 others injured in strikes that hit Al-Hayjah
area… in Al-Jawf governorate,” the office of the UN humanitarian
coordinator for Yemen said in a statement.
Lise Grande, the UN coordinator, denounced the “terrible strikes”.
“Under international humanitarian law, parties which resort to force are
obligated to protect civilians,” she said. “Five years into this conflict and
belligerents are still failing to uphold this responsibility. It’s shocking.”
The rebels reported multiple coalition air strikes in the area where the
plane went down, adding that women and children were among the dead and
wounded, according to rebel television station Al-Masirah.
The coalition conceded the “possibility of collateral damage” during a
“search and rescue operation” at the site of the jet crash, which left the
fate of its crew uncertain.
– ‘A major blow’ –
Without stating the cause of the crash, a coalition statement released by
the official Saudi Press Agency said the crew, comprising two officers,
ejected from the plane before it crashed but the rebels opened fire at them
in “violation of the international humanitarian law”.
“The lives and wellbeing of the crew is the responsibility of the
terrorist Huthi militia,” the statement said, without specifying whether they
had survived.
The Huthi rebels released footage of what they called the launch of their
“advanced surface-to-air missile” and the moment it struck the jet in the
night sky, sending it crashing down in a ball of flames.
“The downing of a Tornado in the sky above Al-Jawf is a major blow to the
enemy and an indication of remarkable growth in Yemeni (rebel) air defence
capabilities,” Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdelsalam tweeted.
The escalation follows fierce fighting around the Huthi-held capital
Sanaa, with the rebels seen to be advancing on several fronts towards Al-
Hazm, the regional capital of Al-Jawf.
The province of Al-Jawf has been mostly controlled by the Huthis, but its
capital remains in the hands of the Saudi-backed government.
– ‘Massively expanded arsenal’ –
The downing of a coalition warplane marks a setback for a military
alliance known for its air supremacy and signals the rebels’ increasingly
potent military arsenal.
“At the start of the conflict the Huthis were a ragtag militia,” Fatima
Abo Alasrar, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, told AFP.
“Today they have massively expanded their arsenal with the help of Iran
and its proxy Hezbollah,” Lebanon’s powerful Shiite movement.
Huthi rebels now possess weapons bearing signs of Iranian origin,
according to a UN report obtained by AFP earlier this month, in potential
violation of a UN arms embargo.
Some of the new weapons, which the rebels obtained last year, “have
technical characteristics similar to arms manufactured in the Islamic
Republic of Iran,” said the report, compiled by a panel of UN experts tasked
with monitoring the embargo.
The panel did not say whether the weapons were delivered to the Huthis
directly by the Iranian government, which has repeatedly denied sending them
arms.
The coalition intervened against the Huthis in 2015, in a conflict that
has killed tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, and sparked
what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The coalition force has been widely criticised for the high civilian death
toll from its bombing campaign, which has prompted some Western governments
to cut arms deliveries to the countries taking part.
On Wednesday, the coalition said it would put on trial military personnel
suspected of being behind deadly air strikes on Yemeni civilians.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0850 hrs