WASHINGTON - The United States has formally approved defence contracts totalling more than $1 billion with Saudi Arabia, as the kingdom’s crown prince continued his American tour.

The State Department confirmed it had green-lighted a $670 million deal for anti-tank missiles, a $106 million contract for helicopter maintenance and $300 million for ground vehicle parts.

An official said the deals had been in the pipeline since President Donald Trump has announced more than $100 billion in possible new contracts on a visit to Riyadh last year. “This proposed sale will support US foreign policy and national security objectives by improving the security of a friendly country,” the Defence Security Cooperation Agency said.

Western governments are under pressure from campaigners, including some US lawmakers, to halt or limit arms sales to Saudi Arabia as its forces fight in Yemen’s brutal civil war.

But the United States, France and Britain continue to pursue lucrative deals to sell and maintain equipment in the kingdom’s vast, high-tech arsenal - and Riyadh is an avid client.

In theory, the US Congress could still block the latest deals announced Thursday, but on Tuesday the Senate voted down a bill to halt US support for the Saudi intervention in Yemen. These contracts are therefore now expected to be nodded through after the State Department and Pentagon gave the go-ahead and Trump publicly celebrated the prospect of the sales.

Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammed Bin Salman is part-way through a three-week tour of America that has already taken him to friendly talks in Trump’s White House. The largest of the three contracts is for 6,600 TOW 2B anti-tank missiles, made by US giant Raytheon.

The next biggest covers spare parts and maintenance for the Saudi ground forces’ pool of US-built Abram tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, LAV armored vehicles, howitzers and Humvees.

The last continues a support contract for the Saudi fleet of AH-64D and E Apache attack helicopters, UK-60L Black Hawk utility choppers and Schweizer and Bell scouts.

 

Amnesty slams US, UK for arming Saudi coalition

Three years into their war on Yemen’s rebels, Saudi Arabia and its military allies - armed by the US and Britain - could stand guilty of war crimes, Amnesty International said Friday.

While all parties in the Yemen war are accused of neglecting civilian safety, the Saudi-led coalition, which intervened on the side of the government in 2015, is behind “the latest in a long string of potential war crimes” documented by Amnesty, said the London-based rights group.

“There is extensive evidence that irresponsible arms flows to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition have resulted in enormous harm to Yemeni civilians,” said Lynn Maalouf, head of Middle East research at Amnesty.

“But this has not deterred the USA, the UK and other states, including France, Spain and Italy, from continuing transfers of billions of dollars worth of such arms.

“As well as devastating civilian lives, this makes a mockery of the global Arms Trade Treaty.”

The United States and Britain are both signatories to the treaty, which regulates the international trade of conventional arms for the purpose of “contributing to international and regional peace, security and stability” and “reducing human suffering”.

Amnesty also slammed the Iran-backed Huthi rebels for potential war crimes, including indiscriminate artillery shelling, enforced disappearances and death sentences against dissidents and members of the Bahai minority.

On March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia and its allies launched what would become an extensive military campaign on Yemen, sending aircraft and troops to back the government in its fight against the Huthis and recently slain former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed, triggering what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Amnesty said it had analysed video evidence confirming that at least two attacks on civilian targets, in August 2017 and January 2018, used bombs manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon of the United States.

Overall, Amnesty said it had documented 36 Saudi-led coalition attacks in which 513 civilians were killed, “many of which may amount to war crimes”.

A January 27, 2018 attack on the southern province of Taez hit a family home three kilometres (two miles) away from the nearest military site.

The coalition used a GBU-12 laser-guided bomb, weighing 500 pounds, manufactured in the US by Lockheed, according to Amnesty.

All six family members were killed or wounded.

An attack in August on a residential neighbourhood in Sanaa, the rebel-controlled capital, killed 16 civilians, most of them children.

Saudi Arabia and members of its military coalition were blacklisted by the United Nations last year for the maiming and killing of children.