Airstrikes in Yemen Hit Wedding Party, Killing Dozens

SANA, Yemen — Warplanes with the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition bombed a wedding party on Yemen’s Red Sea coast on Monday, killing at least 70 civilians, according to two local officials and a relative of one of the victims.The aerial attack, in Wahija, south of the port city of Mokha, appeared to be among the deadliest involving civilians since the start of Yemen’s war this past March. The death toll was difficult to confirm, in part because the bodies of the victims were badly mangled, witnesses said.
The killings added to criticism of the Saudi-led coalition for carrying out what human rights advocates and aid workers said was a military campaign that increasingly failed to distinguish between military targets and civilians. The coalition’s stated goal has been to beat back the Houthis, a rebel group from the north that has seized control of Sana, the capital, and other territory that has forced the government into exile.
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A coalition spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, told Reuters on Monday that the reports of the killings at the wedding were “false news” and that there had been no coalition air operations in the area for the last three days. Efforts to reach General Assiri for further comment were unsuccessful.
Thousands of civilians have died as most of western Yemen has been swept up in war, and the majority of those deaths have come in airstrikes. In almost every case, the Saudi coalition has either denied responsibility for the killings or blamed Houthi militants. Saudi Arabia has also sought to head off a mission to Yemen by human rights investigators with the United Nations who would look into violations by all the warring parties.

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Ahmed Altabozi, who said a niece, Fatma Al-Khaishani, had been killed in the bombing of the wedding party, called the attack inexplicable. The wedding tents were in a remote stretch of the desert, far from any “military sites, soldiers or the presence of the state.” The majority of villagers had already left the area, fearing the airstrikes, he said.

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There was a lot of up-close killing. Men, women, all humans. From all districts around here. They killed everyone. All the north is responsible. We don't want unification," said Ahmed Mohsen al-Awlaki, a laboratory technician turned fighter near al-Badr.

The Gulf-backed forces recaptured Aden in July before pushing north, allowing Hadi to return to his country last week after six months of exile in Saudi Arabia. They are now preparing for a thrust against the Houthi-held capital Sanaa.

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TheDemSocialist said:

Read more @: Airstrikes in Yemen Hit Wedding Party, Killing Dozens

The Saudi Arabia intervention in Yemen and their bombing campaign has failed to distinguish between military targets and civilians again and again, and now they are trying to play this report off as if it did not happen despite well documented evidence. [/FONT][/COLOR]

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cpwill said:

Still glad that regional powers are solving regional problems?

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