Why Are U.S. Bombs Being Dropped on Yemen?

In Yemen on August 9, 2018 -- young boys boarded a school bus for what was meant to be a daylong field trip filled with excitement. 

But that day of fun, soon turned into a day of horror and tragedy as they became the latest victims of a Saudi Yemen war.

A Saudi Arabia led military coalition dropped a 500 pound laser guided bomb on the bus  killing about 51 Yemeni people and injuring about 79 other people. 

The horrific images that emerged from the scene of the attack not only drew the world's attention to the Yemen civil war and the Yemen airstrikes, but also to the international partnerships that are supporting Saudi Arabia's relentless bombardment of its neighbor to the south. Especially after subsequent reporting revealed that the bomb used in the Yemen raid might have been supplied by the United States.

The Yemen conflict has created what the United Nations has called ""the worst humanitarian crisis"" in the world today.  

Conservative estimates say that this war has resulted in death of at least 5,000 civilians, created a famine in the country that claimed the lives of about 50,000 people, pushed 8.4 million Yemenis to the brink of starvation, and sparked a cholera epidemic that has affected more than 1 million people.

This recent conflict in Yemen began with Yemen's civil war, which launched out of the instability that followed a popular uprising in 2011.

Currently, Yemen is in the midst of the Yemen civil war which launched out of the instability that followed a popular uprising in 2011. By September 2014, an Iranian-backed group called the Houthis gained control of large parts of Yemen, including its capital Sana'a.

And in March 2015 a Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirate-led military coalition began an airstrike campaign against Houthi targets in the country. 

And the U.S. has been supporting the Saudi-led coalition since 2015.

On this week's episode of NowThis World, Judah is going to look into this horrific attack and the role that the U.S. continues to play in Yemen.

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