President says he will raise the matter with Saudis, whose coalition forces killed 51 people in August using a US bomb

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Donald Trump has said the air attack on a school bus in Yemen by Saudi-led Coalition forces using a US bomb in August was the result of the bombers not knowing how to use the weapon properly.

At least 51 people died in the attack, including 40 children, most of them aged between six and 11.

The attack highlighted the use of US arms by the Saudi-led coalition in the country, which is fighting the Iran-backed Houthis.

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Asked in an interview with Axios on Sunday night if he was bothered by the Saudi-led coalition using US bombs to kill civilians, Trump called the attack a “horror show” and said “Bother’s not strong enough”.

But he said ultimately the attack was down to user error.

“That was basically people that didn’t know how to use the weapon, which is horrible,” he said. “I’ll be talking about a lot of things with the Saudis, but certainly I wouldn’t be having people that don’t know how to use the weapons shooting at buses with children.”

In September Saudi-led coalition in Yemen admitted the air attack on the bus was unjustified and pledged to hold anyone to account who contributed to the error.

This rare admission came after mounting international pressure, including from allies, to do more to limit civilian casualties in the three-and-a-half-year civil war that has killed more than 10,000 people and pushed the already impoverished country to the brink of famine.

Calls for western countries, including the US and the UK, to stop sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia have intensified since the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey in October.

In the weeks after Khashoggi went missing, Trump said he did not want the US to lose its share of the huge Saudi arms market to Russia or China.

Trump said: “We don’t like it even a little bit. But whether or not we should stop $110bn [£83bn] from being spent in this country – knowing they have … two very good alternatives. That would not be acceptable to me.”



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“I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country – they are spending $110bn on military equipment and on things that create jobs for this country.”

Trump’s comments come as Saudi Arabia’s King Salman prepares to embark on a week-long domestic tour on Tuesday, as the monarchy faces its worst political crisis in a generation over Khashoggi’s death.

It is the first such trip for the 82-year-old king since he acceded to the throne in 2015, according to local media, which reported expected stops in the provinces of Qassim and Hail, both north-west of Riyadh.

The tour comes as Saudi Arabia faces an international outcry over Khashoggi’s murder a month ago in its consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh initially denied any role in his disappearance, but under pressure from Turkish authorities it eventually identified 18 suspects in the case.

It was not immediately clear if the king’s powerful son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, would be participating in the tour.