ISLAMABAD – Thirty-one people were killed in air strikes on Yemen onSaturday, the United Nations said, the victims of an apparent Saudi-ledretaliation after Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed to have shot down oneof its jets.
The Tornado aircraft came down on Friday in northern Al-Jawf provinceduring an operation to support government forces, a rare shooting down thatprompted operations in the area by a Saudi-led military coalition fightingthe rebels.
The deadly violence follows an upsurge in fighting in northern Yemenbetween the warring parties that threatens to worsen the war-batteredcountry’s humanitarian crisis.
“Preliminary field reports indicate that on 15 February as many as 31civilians were killed and 12 others injured in strikes that hit Al-Hayjaharea […] in Al-Jawf governorate,” the office of the UN humanitariancoordinator for Yemen said in a statement.
Lise Grande, the UN coordinator, denounced the “terrible strikes”.
“Under international humanitarian law, parties which resort to force areobligated to protect civilians,” she said.
“Five years into this conflict and belligerents are still failing to upholdthis responsibility. It’s shocking.”
The rebels reported multiple coalition air strikes in the area where theplane went down, adding that women and children were among the dead andwounded, according to rebel television station *Al-Masirah*.
The coalition conceded the “possibility of collateral damage” during a”search and rescue operation” at the site of the jet crash, which left thefate of its crew uncertain.’A major blow’
Without stating the cause of the crash, a coalition statement released bythe official *Saudi Press Agency* said the crew, comprising two officers,ejected from the plane before it crashed but the rebels opened fire at themin “violation of the international humanitarian law”.
“The lives and wellbeing of the crew is the responsibility of the terroristHouthi militia,” the statement said, without specifying whether they hadsurvived.
The Houthi rebels released footage of what they called the launch of their”advanced surface-to-air missile” and the moment it struck the jet in thenight sky, sending it crashing down in a ball of flames.
“The downing of a Tornado in the sky above Al-Jawf is a major blow to theenemy and an indication of remarkable growth in Yemeni (rebel) air defencecapabilities,” Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdelsalam tweeted.
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The escalation follows fierce fighting around the Houthi-held capitalSanaa, with the rebels seen to be advancing on several fronts towardsAl-Hazm, the regional capital of Al-Jawf.
The province of Al-Jawf has been mostly controlled by the Houthis, but itscapital remains in the hands of the Saudi-backed government.’Massively expanded arsenal’
The downing of a coalition warplane marks a setback for a military allianceknown for its air supremacy and signals the rebels’ increasingly potentmilitary arsenal.
“At the start of the conflict the Houthis were a ragtag militia,” FatimaAbo Alasrar, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, told *AFP*.
“Today they have massively expanded their arsenal with the help of Iran andits proxy Hezbollah,” Lebanon’s powerful Shia movement.
Houthi rebels now possess weapons bearing signs of Iranian origin,according to a UN report obtained by *AFP* earlier this month, in potentialviolation of a UN arms embargo.
Some of the new weapons, which the rebels obtained last year, “havetechnical characteristics similar to arms manufactured in the IslamicRepublic of Iran,” said the report, compiled by a panel of UN expertstasked with monitoring the embargo.
The panel did not say whether the weapons were delivered to the Houthisdirectly by the Iranian government, which has repeatedly denied sendingthem arms.
The coalition intervened against the Houthis in 2015, in a conflict thathas killed tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, and sparkedwhat the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The coalition force has been widely criticised for the high civilian deathtoll from its bombing campaign, which has prompted some Western governmentsto cut arms deliveries to the countries taking part.
On Wednesday, the coalition said it would put on trial military personnelsuspected of being behind deadly air strikes on Yemeni civilians. – APP /AFP
