*RIYADH – Saudi Arabia has sought to tame critics with an aggressiveforeign policy, but a deadly air raid in Yemen following an acrimoniousspat with Canada will only amplify international pressure on the kingdom,analysts say.*
An air strike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a bus in rebel-held northernYemen on Thursday, killing dozens of what aid groups said were schoolchildren, with the United States and United Nations both calling for aninvestigation.
The coalition insisted Huthi rebel combatants were aboard the bus, butinternational media have photographed dazed and bloodied children floodinginto hospitals struggling to cope with a three-year conflict that the UNhas dubbed the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
“The war is becoming increasingly unpopular with the internationalcommunity, including in the US Congress,” Sigurd Neubauer, a Middle Eastanalyst in Washington, told AFP.
“(This) attack has unfortunately become the norm and not the exception.”
The coalition has repeatedly been accused of striking civilians in Yemensince it launched an intervention in 2015 to try to restore theinternationally recognised government after the Iran-backed Shiite Huthirebels drove it out of the capital Sanaa.
The coalition called Thursday’s strike a “legitimate military action” inresponse to a rebel missile attack on Saudi Arabia’s southern Jizan city aday earlier that resulted in the death of a Yemeni national.
But that did not quell the outpouring of global condemnation.
“NO EXCUSES ANYMORE!!” tweeted Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF’s regional directorin the Middle East and North Africa.
“Does the world really need more innocent children’s lives to stop thecruel war on children in Yemen?”
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, tweeted: “Grotesque,shameful, indignant. Blatant disregard for rules of war when bus carryinginnocent school children is fair game for attack.”*‘Shutting the door to criticism’*
The bombing raid, part of an intervention that reflects Saudi Crown PrinceMohammed bin Salman’s increasingly assertive foreign policy, follows thekingdom’s diplomatic rupture with Canada earlier this week.
Saudi Arabia expelled Canada’s ambassador, recalled its own envoy and frozeall new trade and investments after Ottawa publicly demanded the “immediaterelease” of rights campaigners jailed in the kingdom.
A furious Riyadh also moved to pull out thousands of Saudi students fromCanadian universities, state airline Saudia suspended flights to Toronto,and the kingdom pledged to stop all medical treatment programmes in Canada.
The Saudi reaction could impinge on the kingdom’s efforts to attract badlyneeded foreign investment to fund its ambitious reform plan to pivot theeconomy away from oil, experts say.
The move illustrates how the oil-rich kingdom is unwilling to brook anycriticism –- foreign or domestic -– under its young crown prince.
“The top leadership is not particularly concerned with Canada’s globalinfluence,” said analysis firm Eurasia Group.
“Instead, it is interested in shutting the door to broader criticism, alsofrom European countries, and on other issues in the future.”
But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has refused to back down andasserted that his country will continue to speak out on human rights.
Saudi officials privately insist that respect for cultural sensitivitiesand closed-door diplomatic engagement is a more effective approach thanpublic denunciations of the kingdom. – APP/AFP