The Saudi-led coalition’s combat planning chief has defended the air war in Yemen against international concern about civilian casualties.
In an exclusive interview with AFP, the Royal Saudi Air Force brigadier general accused rights groups and other critics of “looking through one eye only.”
“They are receiving all the information from the adversary,” he said of Yemen’s Houthi terrorists supported by forces loyal to ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
“We are sticking to the rules, the international rules and Geneva Convention, first, and law of conflict,” said the brigadier.
“We don’t deviate from those standards,” the brigadier told AFP during the first visit by a foreign journalist to the coalition’s planning and operations center at King Salman Air Base in Riyadh.
“We don’t target civilians,” he said.
“First of all we are human, and we don’t… target anybody who’s not in the conflict,” the planning chief said.
He said targeting is verified many times to ensure that civilians will not be killed.
The joint forces commander sends targets to the intelligence section which makes sure the objective is in line with the rules of engagement to avoid civilian casualties, the brigadier said.
Intelligence forward it to the planning section “so they start to study it again,” he said, before it is further reviewed by others.
They assign the right type of weapon to the appropriate aircraft as a further measure to avoid killing or injuring civilians, the brigadier said.
The brigadier said that more than 50 people working around the clock in his planning cell have taken courses in the US, Britain and France.
“The people here, they are trained very well and they are professional,” he said of the uniformed personnel working at computers outside his office.
On another floor is the operations center, where officers monitor large screens showing surveillance images from Yemen.
The center is linked directly to the coalition commander.
“We know where our aircraft are now over Yemen and what they are doing,” the planning chief said.
Aircrews also must ensure no civilians are in the area before releasing their bombs, which are guided by GPS or laser for accuracy.
“We abort our mission” if civilians are present, the brigadier said.
“Because if we don’t target today we can target tomorrow or after tomorrow. We are not in a hurry.”
AFP
