The US Air Force in recent months has significantly increased its support of Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen—one that has led to atrocities that have drawn widespread international condemnation
US Air Force officials reported having upped the number of refueling missions conducted in support of the Saudi-led campaign by 61 percent since February, according to The Air Force Times.
“[W]e’ve flown 1,144 aerial refueling sorties totaling approximately 9,793 flying hours and providing 40,535,200 pounds of fuel to 5,525 receiving aircraft,” Air Force spokeswoman Kiley Dougherty told the paper. The data were updated on Monday.
Saudi forces and their international partners started bombing Yemen in March 2015. They launched their campaign to target the Houthi rebels who ousted the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The insurgent group is comprised of Shia militants who, their adversaries claim, are proxies of the Iranian government.
The Houthis are led, in part, by former Yemeni President and US ally, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Hadi’s predeccesor, Saleh was once so close to Washington, he allegedly kept a journalist in prison on behalf of President Obama.
When the Saudi campaign was launched, the State Department said the US would offer logistics and intelligence support for the coalition.
By Oct. 2015, the assistance was causing some discomfort within the White House. Officials told Politico they were concerned the US could be accused “of abetting war crimes in a bombing campaign that could ultimately strengthen Islamist militants.” At the time, Saudi airstrikes were alleged to have killed 1,500 civilians.
Thirty-six hours after the article was published, Anne Patterson, the State Department’s top political-appointee overseeing Middle Eastern affairs, told a Congressional committee that “human rights and democracy” were a second priority behind counterterrorism.
Recent data indicate that at least 3,500 civilians have been killed in the campaign, as of June. The majority of casualties are said to be the responsibility of Saudi-led actions.
In June, Saudi Arabia was added to a United Nations blacklist of governments that kill children, but it was taken off after pressure from Saudi diplomats, who had threatened to cut off funding from the oil-rich nation to the UN. A report issued by a UN agency had said the Saudis were responsible for the deaths of over 500 children in Yemen, in 2015.
The State Department did manage to chastise their allies for their intimidation tactics, saying via spokesman Mark Toner, that the UN “should be permitted to carry out its mandate, carry out its responsibilities, without fear of money being cut off.”
As Politico noted late last month, however, Saudi Arabia’s threat was ripped straight from Washington’s playbook.
“[A]fter the U.N.’s cultural agency, UNESCO, recognized Palestine in 2011,” the outlet noted, “the United States suspended its contributions worth $80 million annually, or more than a fifth of the agency’s budget.”
