Raytheon-Manufactured Bomb Kills 31 Civilians at Yemen Water Drilling Site in Apparent War Crime

Before dawn on September 10, 2016, Saudi-led coalition aircraft conducted repeated airstrikes on a water drilling site in Arhab, Sanaa governorate, Yemen, killing at least 31 civilians and wounding 42 others in what Human Rights Watch characterized as an apparent war crime. The first strike hit near a workers’ shelter occupied by nearly a dozen workers and managers at approximately 5:30 AM, killing six and wounding five others. After several dozen villagers arrived around 9:00 AM to remove bodies and examine the site, coalition aircraft returned and proceeded to bomb the vicinity at least 12 more times over the course of three hours, with strikes occurring approximately 15 minutes apart. These secondary strikes killed at least 15 additional civilians and wounded dozens more, demonstrating a pattern of “double-tap” strikes designed to maximize casualties among first responders—a tactic that constitutes a clear violation of the laws of war.

Raytheon Bomb Manufactured in Arizona

Human Rights Watch weapons experts examined and photographed remnants of two US-made GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided 500-pound bombs found at the strike site. One bomb’s wing assembly bore markings indicating production by Raytheon Company at its Tucson, Arizona facility in October 2015—manufactured less than a year before it killed Yemeni civilians. The precision-guided munition’s presence at an isolated water drilling site—reachable only by dirt road and located two kilometers from the nearest village—demonstrated that the coalition possessed the technological capability to strike with extreme accuracy, making the civilian casualties result from deliberate targeting decisions rather than technological limitations. The drill rig represented critical civilian infrastructure in a region facing severe water scarcity, and its targeting violated prohibitions against attacking objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.

Double-Tap Strike Pattern

The systematic nature of the attack—an initial strike followed by repeated attacks on rescuers hours later—constituted a textbook “double-tap” strike designed to kill first responders. This tactic violates fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, which requires parties to a conflict to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm and prohibits attacks that fail to distinguish between military objectives and civilians. The coalition aircraft had sufficient time during the three-hour attack sequence to observe that the site contained only civilian workers and rescuers, yet continued striking. The attack occurred in an unpopulated area with no apparent military objective, and witnesses reported no Houthi military presence or activity in the vicinity. Human Rights Watch investigators found no evidence of any legitimate military target that could have justified even the initial strike, much less the sustained bombardment of rescue efforts.

US Complicity and Raytheon Profitability

The attack occurred during a period when the United States provided extensive intelligence support, aerial refueling, and logistical assistance to the Saudi-led coalition, while Raytheon and other US defense contractors supplied billions of dollars in weapons systems. The fresh manufacture date on the Raytheon bomb—produced in October 2015, just months after the Yemen war began in March 2015—demonstrated the direct pipeline between Arizona weapons factories and Yemeni civilian casualties. Raytheon’s Paveway guidance systems converted unguided bombs into precision weapons, technology the company marketed as reducing civilian casualties. However, the Arhab attack revealed how precision-guided munitions enabled war crimes by allowing attackers to deliberately target civilian sites with accuracy while maintaining plausible deniability. The attack documented a clear chain of accountability: Raytheon manufactured the weapon, the US government approved its export to Saudi Arabia, Saudi forces deliberately struck civilians, and Raytheon continued profiting from additional weapons sales despite documented use in war crimes.

Significance

The Arhab water drilling site attack exemplified the systematic pattern of Saudi coalition war crimes in Yemen enabled by US weapons manufacturers, particularly Raytheon. The attack’s targeting of critical civilian infrastructure, the use of recently-manufactured US precision-guided munitions, and the deliberate “double-tap” strikes on rescuers demonstrated that coalition forces possessed both the technological capability and tactical knowledge to avoid civilian harm but chose to inflict it. The incident provided ammunition for congressional critics of US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, though these concerns would be repeatedly overridden by executive branch determinations that weapons sales served US strategic interests. For Raytheon, the bombing represented a public relations challenge but caused no interruption to its lucrative Saudi contracts. The company’s stock price continued rising throughout 2016-2017 as Middle East tensions and Saudi weapons purchases accelerated. The attack established a pattern that would repeat throughout the Yemen war: precision-guided Raytheon weapons being used in attacks killing civilians, human rights organizations documenting the war crimes, congressional protests, executive branch defenses of arms sales, and Raytheon’s continued profitability. The 31 civilian deaths at Arhab represented not aberrations but predictable consequences of a weapons supply relationship where manufacturer profits took precedence over civilian protection.