Saudi-led strikes on Yemen against international law: Analyst

Press TV – March 26, 2015

Dozens of civilians are killed as Saudi Arabia and a coalition of regional allies launch a military operation in neighboring Yemen.

Yemeni media says warplanes have bombed residential areas including a hospital. Sana’a international airport has also been hit. Dozens of Yemeni civilians, including children and women, are killed in the attacks. Witnesses say the residential Bani Hawwat neighborhood has been the worst hit. The Saudi ambassador to the US says a group of ten countries have contributed to Yemen offensive.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Seif Da’na, professor at the University of Wisconsin from Chicago, for his take on the airstrikes by Saudi Arabia and its allies against Yemeni people.

Da’na warned that the assault might amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in Yemen, because the attackers have no right to enter the Yemeni airspace in the first place, let alone kill innocent children and civilians.

At least 13 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the Saudi-led air raids overnight, a Yemeni source said.

“Just last month, a resolution that was proposed by the Saudis and other countries in the region to the Security Council failed to pass. So there is no international legitimacy,” the analyst maintains.

He further argued, “The only kind of legitimacy they claim to have is that they have consulted with the US and they have the US support and some sort of green light from the US, but such coordination with the US doesn’t give any legitimacy to such an act.”

Da’na also ruled out some media propaganda which say Yemenis welcome such attacks by the Saudis, noting that the Yemeni people would basically condemn such intervention as nobody wants other countries to invade their country.