By Daniel Brown,Business Insider
- US Green Berets are helping Saudi Arabia locate and destroy Iranian-backed Houthi ballistic missiles and launch sites in Yemen, according to The New York Times.
- About 12 Green Berets were deployed to the Saudi border with Yemen in late 2017 shortly after the Houthis fired a Burkan H-2 short-range ballistic missile at Riyadh, The Times reported.
- The Saudi-led coalition began striking the Shiite Muslim Houthis in Yemen in 2015 after the Houthis overthrew the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2014.
US Green Berets are helping Saudi Arabia locate and destroy Iranian-backed Houthi ballistic missiles and launch sites in Yemen, according to The New York Times.
About 12 Green Berets were deployed to the Saudi border with Yemen in late 2017, but do not appear to have entered the country, The Times reported. They were deployed shortly after the Houthis fired aBurkan H-2 short-range ballistic missile at Riyadh in November 2017, which the Saudis claimed to have shot down, possibly with a US-made Patriot missile defense system.
The Saudi-led coalition began striking the Shiite Muslim Houthis in Yemen in 2015 after the Houthis overthrew the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa in 2014.
Hagar Yahia holds her 5-year-old daughter Awsaf, who is suffering from malnourishment from living mainly off of bread and tea, in this Feb. 9, 2018 photo in Abyan, Yemen.Associated Press
A Pentagon spokesperson, Major Rankine-Galloway, previously told Business Insider that the US sells weapons to countries in the Saudi-led coalition, as well as provides “limited intelligence sharing,” aerial refueling for coalition jets, and training to make coalition airstrikes more precise.
In late January, Germany and Norway announced that they would stop selling weapons to countries in the Saudi-led coalition over the war in Yemen.
Rankine-Galloway told Business Insider on Thursday that he could not confirm the Times report “about the deployment of special operations forces,” but provided the following statement:
“The U.S. military has had a mil-to-mil relationship with Saudi Arabia for decades which includes military personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Special Operation Forces providing training, advising, and assisting in a variety of mission areas.
The DOD’s limited non-combat support, such as intelligence sharing, focuses on assisting our partners in securing their borders from cross-border attacks from the Houthis and improving coalition processes and procedures, especially regarding compliance with the law of armed conflict and best practices for reducing the risk of civilian casualties.
Due to operational security, we cannot comment further on the makeup of forward-deployed forces.”
The Saudi-led coalition has since been accused of conducting unlawful and indiscriminate airstrikes in Yemen, as well as blocking food, fuel, and medicine into the country. Images of emaciated Yemeni adults and children have abounded, and at least eight million people in Yemen are on the brink of famine and one million children are infected with cholera, according to Human Rights Watch.
In a recent strike, the Saudi-led coalition hit a weddingin a village in northwestern Yemen, killing at least 20 civilians and wounding 45 more. The bride in the wedding was among those killed, and the groom was also wounded.
A number of countries are part of the Saudi-led coalition, including the US, but Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the main actors conducting airstrikes in the war-torn country.
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This article originally appeared on Business Insider. Follow @BusinessInsider on Twitter
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