WASHINGTON — The US plans to halt some arms sales to Saudi Arabia because of the high civilian death toll in the kingdom’s Yemen bombing campaign.
Quoting a US official, Reuters first reported that “systemic, endemic” problems in Saudi Arabia’s targeting drove the US decision, which officials acknowledged Tuesday, to halt a future weapons sale involving precision-guided munitions made by Raytheon.
The contract — to convert dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions that can more accurately hit their targets — is valued at $350 million, according to a report in The New York Times.
“We’ve decided not to move forward with some foreign military sales cases for air-dropped munitions, PGMs (precision-guided munitions),” the unnamed US official told Reuters. “That’s obviously a direct reflection of the concerns that we have about Saudi strikes that have resulted in civilian casualties.”
As recently as July, the US State Department approved a possible foreign military sale to the United Arab Emirates for more than 14,000 Raytheon-made Paveway guided bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munition kits worth an estimated $785 million. The UAE had been involved in air operations in Yemen since March.
Read the whole story from Defense News.
Featured image courtesy of CNN.
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