Throughout the first nine months of the Saudi war in Yemen, Saudi officials have face repeated criticism from human rights groups over the disproportionate number of civilians being killed in their airstrikes. Up until now, the Saudis denied the killings.
Today however, Saudi coalition officials are promising changes to their airstrike targeting, expressing “great regret” for the civilian toll, and say US and British military experts will be advising them on how to get the civilian toll down.
Of course, the US has been involved in the Saudi war from the start, and has repeatedly been reported to be involved in targeting advice throughout. It is unclear, then, what will actually be changing, except the promise to get the toll down.
The move was likely prompted by last week’s UN report, leaked to media outlets, which warned the Saudis were “systematically” targeting civilians and deliberately starving the Yemeni population with their naval blockade, warning it could amount to “crimes against humanity.”
In a recent interview of Scott Horton with Gareth Porter the outcome of their discussion was pretty much that the US has not been directly involved in targeting ,even if they did claim so at the start of the war.