US Insists They’ve Urged Saudis to Stick to ‘Lawful’ Targeting.
UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein, addressing the Security Council today, warned that Saudi Arabia seems to be disproportionately responsible for civilian deaths in the ongoing Yemen war, a nine month conflict that’s led to enormous civilian casualties.
Saudi Arabia began airstrikes against Yemen back in March, and has repeatedly faced reports from human rights groups of enormous civilian death tolls in airstrikes against residential areas. During the UN General Assembly, however, Saudi officials managed to block efforts to investigate the killings, rather getting the UN to empower them to investigate themselves.
US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power told reporters that the US has been urging Saudi Arabia to “ensure lawful and discriminate targeting,” though this has not stopped the US from providing much of the weaponry used in the strikes, and to help coordinate the war.
The Saudi war has from the start been faulted for its horrendous impact on human rights, which has included not just airstrikes on populated areas, but also a full naval blockade of Yemen, which has brought food imports to the nation, which historically has had to import 90% of its food, to a comparative halt.
The regime in Saudi Arabia has been strongly criticized by human rights organizations.
Saudi Arabia has been compared to DAESH in long time now, especially for their support of terrorist organizations in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Hashtags #SueMeSaudi and #SaudiArabiaIsISIS has many hits every minute, and many want to mark their opposition and to show their distance to the brutal dictator regime in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia practice Wahhabism ideology, a strictly fundamentalist orientation within Sunni Islam, which in practice is the state religion in the country. It is also ideology direction that has inspired al-Qaida and DAESH.
