The United States has approved another $290 million precision-guided bomb sale to Saudi Arabia, according to a notice to Congress released Tuesday.
The Trump administration approved selling Saudi Arabia 3,000 Boeing-made GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb I (SDB I) munitions and related equipment, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notice.
The sale comes in the final days of US President Donald Trump’s term. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the Middle East’s biggest buyer of American weapons, in a bid to pressure Riyadh to end a war in Yemen that has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
“The [State Department’s] Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale today,” the statement said on Tuesday.
The State Department said that Saudi Arabia requested to buy GBU-39 SDB I munitions with containers, support equipment and services, spare and repair parts.
About 45,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed and injured as a result of the direct bombing of the US-Saudi coalition since the beginning of the aggression on March 26, 2015, most of the victims were killed by US weapons and ammunition.
The deal reminds the world the most horrific Saudi massacre against the bus students, on August 9, 2018, which was committed by a US-made 227-kilogram laser-guided missile that was sold to Saudi Arabia as part of an arms deal approved by the US State Department.
The serial numbers of the missile parts showed that the missile belongs to the “Lockheed Martin” company, which specializes in the US military industries, and the missile that is guided by laser beams.
The coalition launched the missile from a US-made warplane targeting the bus, which was carrying dozens of children, killing more than 50 people, most of them are children, and wounding about 80 others.
In a similar massacre, Saudi Arabia used US missiles targeting a funeral hall in Sana’a in October 2016, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians.
