Saudi Coalition Uses US-Made Bombs to Kill 155 at Yemen Funeral Hall in Sanaa

On the afternoon of October 8, 2016, Saudi-led coalition aircraft struck the Al Kubra funeral hall in Sanaa, Yemen, with two airstrikes approximately three to eight minutes apart, killing 155 people and wounding at least 525 others in one of the deadliest single attacks of the Yemen war. The funeral was being held for the father of Jalal al-Rowaishan, Yemen’s former interior minister, and the hall was packed with hundreds of mourners including government officials, tribal leaders, and civilians. Witnesses reported that the first strike hit the main hall where mourners had gathered, causing massive casualties. Minutes later, as survivors attempted to evacuate the wounded and dying, a second strike hit the same location, killing and wounding rescuers. Human Rights Watch identified munition remnants at the scene as US-manufactured air-dropped GBU-12 Paveway II 500-pound laser-guided bombs, with markings indicating production by US defense contractors.

US-Made Precision-Guided Munitions

Weapon fragments recovered from the funeral hall site bore manufacturer codes linking them to US defense contractors, specifically the Paveway II guidance system produced by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. The GBU-12 Paveway II represented one of the most widely-exported US precision-guided munitions, marketed as reducing civilian casualties through accurate targeting. However, the funeral hall attack demonstrated how precision-guided weapons enabled rather than prevented war crimes—allowing attackers to deliberately strike civilian gatherings with pinpoint accuracy. The funeral occurred at a well-known location in Sanaa, and coalition forces would have had access to intelligence confirming the gathering’s civilian nature. The use of precision-guided munitions eliminated any defense that the attack resulted from poor targeting accuracy or technological limitations. The coalition possessed the capability to strike precisely where they intended, making the massacre a clear case of deliberate targeting of civilians.

Pattern of Attacking Gatherings

The funeral hall massacre was not an isolated incident but part of a documented pattern of Saudi coalition attacks on civilian gatherings, including weddings, markets, and funeral ceremonies. Human Rights Watch characterized the attack as an apparent war crime under international humanitarian law, which prohibits deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The organization noted that even if coalition forces believed a legitimate military target was present at the funeral—which no evidence suggested—the attack would still violate laws of war prohibitions against attacks expected to cause excessive civilian harm relative to military advantage. The two-strike pattern, with the second attack targeting rescuers, constituted a “double-tap” strike methodology designed to maximize casualties and terrorize civilian populations. This tactic violated fundamental principles requiring parties to protect wounded persons and respect humanitarian aid operations.

International Response and US Arms Sales

The funeral hall massacre provoked international condemnation and renewed questions about US support for the Saudi-led coalition. The Obama administration temporarily suspended a planned transfer of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia in December 2016, though the pause would prove short-lived. Congressional critics including Senators Chris Murphy and Rand Paul cited the funeral attack as evidence that US weapons were enabling war crimes, but legislative efforts to block Saudi arms sales failed to overcome executive branch resistance. For US defense contractors, the funeral massacre represented a public relations crisis but no interruption to Saudi contract revenue. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin maintained their Saudi weapons deals, with company executives arguing that decisions about weapons use remained the purchaser’s responsibility. The State Department defended continued arms sales by claiming US engagement provided leverage to improve Saudi targeting practices—an argument contradicted by the pattern of continued civilian-casualty incidents.

Significance

The Sanaa funeral hall massacre marked a turning point in international awareness of Saudi coalition war crimes in Yemen, providing graphic evidence that US-supplied precision-guided weapons were being used to deliberately target civilians rather than reduce collateral damage. The 155 dead and 525 wounded represented one of the war’s deadliest single incidents, and the presence of US-manufactured bomb fragments at the scene established direct American complicity in the atrocity. The attack demonstrated that the problem was not technological inadequacy but deliberate policy—coalition forces possessed the most advanced targeting technology US contractors could provide, yet chose to strike a funeral gathering packed with civilians. For Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, the incident illustrated the moral hazard of precision-guided weapons sales: the same technology marketed as humanitarian for its accuracy could enable war crimes by providing plausible deniability for deliberate civilian targeting. The funeral massacre galvanized opposition to US-Saudi arms deals, though this opposition would repeatedly fail to overcome the political and economic power of defense contractors and their allied government officials. The 155 deaths represented a fraction of total Yemen war casualties, but the concentrated horror of the attack and the clear evidence of US weapons involvement made it a defining atrocity that human rights organizations would reference for years as evidence of American complicity in Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe.