Pro-Saudi Yemeni Officials Endorse Airstrike Against Market

Officials Say Only 32 Killed in Market, Not 56 as UN Reported

Officials from the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have issued a statement on this week’s Saudi attack on the Taiz marketplace, which the UN reported as having killed 56 civilians. The officials claimed 32 civilians were killed in the attack.

The statement gave the impression they were entirely comfortable with the 32 civilians being killed, saying the civilians were surveying the damage from a previous attack on the market, which was closed at the time, when the new attack happened.

They further insisted the Saudis were targeting a “military vehicle” in the attack, though there is no indication that the vehicle was actually hit, and the casualties appear to have been all the civilians within the market.

Officials went on to issue a statement faulting the UN for reporting so many civilian deaths, saying that the Shi’ite Houthis were always the target of Saudi airstrikes, even though they almost never seem to be what the Saudis are hitting, and that makes it their fault when the Saudis kill literally hundreds of bystanders.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.