Saudi-led coalition investigation concludes airstrike that hit school bus filled with children last month was unjustified

Naif Rahma/Reuters

A Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a school bus in Yemen on Thursday, killing dozens of people.

• A Saudi-led coalition investigation has concluded that an airstrike that hit a school bus filled with children in August was unjustified.
• Mansour Ahmed al-Mansour, a legal adviser to the Joint Incident Assessment Team, said the coalition should hold those responsible for the mistake accountable.

An air attack by the Saudi-led coalition that killed dozens of people, including children traveling on a bus, in Yemen last month lacked military justification, an investigative body set up by the coalition said on Saturday.

Mansour Ahmed al-Mansour, a legal adviser to the Joint Incident Assessment Team, said the coalition should hold those responsible for the mistake accountable.

The bomb used in the Saudi-led coalition airstrike on August 9 was reportedly a 500-pound (227 kilogram) laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, a top US defense contractor.

The conflict in Yemen, which began in 2015 after the Iranian-backed Houthis overthrew the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has been described as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world, with at least 8 million people on the brink of starvation, and one million children infected with cholera.

The US is part of the Saudi-led coalition, providing limited intelligence sharing, aerial refueling for coalition jets, training to make coalition airstrikes more precise, and more.