U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince and foreign minister on Sunday to reiterate the United States' "deep concern" about an air strike on a funeral gathering in Yemen, a State Department spokesman said.
The strike, which was widely blamed on Saudi-led warplanes, prompted the White House on Saturday to announce a review of Washington's support to Saudi Arabia for its 18-month-old campaign in Yemen. The planes hit mourners at a community hall in the capital, Sanaa, on Saturday, killing 140 people, according to one U.N. estimate and 82, according to the Houthis.
Kerry spoke with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir and said he welcomed bin Salman's commitment "to launch a thorough and immediate investigation of the strike," according to the statement by State Department spokesman Mark Toner.
Kerry urged bin Salman to take "urgent steps to ensure such an incident does not happen again," Toner said.
Arab coalition intercepts Yemen missiles
An Arab coalition intercepted two missiles fired by Yemen's Houthi group at targets in Saudi
Arabia and Yemen's Marib province on Sunday, Saudi Arabian official media reported.
Warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition later attacked the two military bases where the missiles came from, the Saudi Press Agency reported late on Sunday.
A base in the capital Sanaa fired one missile towards Marib, and a base in northern Saada province launched a missile towards the Saudi city of Taif, the site of a Saudi air force base according to media reports.
The Houthi-run Saba News reported that a missile fired by Houthi forces hit the Taif base, causing what it called a huge explosion. The report could not be independently confirmed.
An estimated 10,000 people have been killed in the war, which has caused a humanitarian disaster and widespread shortages of essentials. The United Nations says more than half Yemen's 28 million people do not have enough to eat.
Saudi Arabia and its allies, which are fighting in support of the exiled government of Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, see the Houthis as proxies of their arch-rival Iran.
The Houthis deny this and say Hadi and Saudi Arabia are pawns of the West bent on dominating their impoverished country and excluding them from power.
REUTERS