Arms sales to Saudi Arabia sky rocket under Trump regime
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RIYADH - US President Donald Trump, who repeatedly condemned Saudi policies during the 2016 election campaign, has allowed more than a billion dollars worth of arms to be delivered to the Saudi kingdom, which is committing war crimes in the neighboring Yemen, a new report shows.
According to a new analysis of US Census Bureau export data conducted by The Daily Beast, the United States has delivered $1.56 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia since Trump’s inauguration in January.
In the first eight months of 2017, the Trump administration more than doubled its bombs, missiles, and ammunition deliveries to Saudi Arabia, when compared with the first eight months of 2016, under the administration of former President Barack Obama, the report pointed out.
The US sold Saudi Arabia $561 million in bombs and missiles, $503 million in armored fighting vehicles and parts, and $552 million in parts to maintain warplanes which the kingdom is using in its war of aggression against Yemen.
Human rights groups and arms monitoring experts have voiced concerns over Washington's supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
“The United States should not be sending more weapons into an unwinnable conflict and into the hands of a country that uses US weapons against civilian targets,” Jeff Abramson, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, told the online publication.
"Instead, the Trump administration should use its influence to find a political solution to the disastrous war in Yemen, which has led to a massive humanitarian crisis,” he added.
Saudi Arabia has been bombing Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to bring back to power the resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of Riyadh, and to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement. The Riyadh regime has, however, failed to reach its goals despite suffering great expense.
The military aggression has claimed the lives of more than 12,000 people, most of them civilians.
Since 2011, the Saudi regime has also been sponsoring militants fighting against the Syrian government, which has left hundreds of thousands of people dead and millions more displaced.
London and Washington have been providing logistic and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia, while equipping the kingdom’s military forces with a wide array of weapons including illegal munitions like cluster bombs.
