US Ally Saudi Arabia Bombs Another "Doctors Without Borders" Hospital

The new information adds to a body of evidence that the U.S. military was closely examining the internationally run medical facility site, raising questions about whether the decision to attack it on October 3 violated international law. The attack left a mounting death toll, now up to 30 people. By one account, U.S. troops requested the air strike after coming under fire.
 
In the days before the attack, "an official in Washington" asked Doctors without Borders "whether our hospital had a large group of Taliban fighters in it," spokesman Tim Shenk said in an email. "We replied that this was not the case. We also stated that we were very clear with both sides to the conflict about the need to respect medical structures."
 
Taken together, the revelations raise the possibility that U.S. forces destroyed what they knew was a functioning hospital, which would be a violation of the international rules of war. The Pentagon has said Americans would never have intentionally fired on a medical facility. It's unclear why the Green Beret unit requested the strike - and how such an attack was approved by the chain of command - on coordinates widely known to have included a hospital.
 
Doctors without Borders officials say the hospital was not under Taliban control and that no gunmen were operating from within the compound - about six city blocks square with the one-story hospital situated some two blocks back behind a 12-foot wall - when the AC-130 gunship made five passes, firing for an hour.
 
Doctors without Borders has said it was frantically calling Kabul and Washington during the attack, trying to make the U.S. aware of what was unfolding as patients died in their beds.

"There are so-called mass media reports which allege that Russian aircraft bombed a field hospital in the Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria and reportedly killed 13 people. I cannot say that these reports are written by journalists but their ingenuity delights. This information appears with reference to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in London. As we all understand, it is very ‘convenient’ to cover and observe what is happening in Syria without leaving London and without the ability to collect information in the field.”

A Yemeni hospital run by medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was hit by a Saudi-led air strike, the group said on Tuesday, the latest bombing of a civilian target in the seven-month air campaign in Yemen.
 
"MSF facility in Saada Yemen was hit by several air strikes last night with patients and staff inside the facility," the group said in a tweet on Tuesday.
 
Yemen's state news agency Saba, run the Iran-allied Houthi group that is the coalition's enemy, quoted the Heedan hospital director saying that several people were injured in the attack.
 
"The air raids resulted in the destruction of the entire hospital with all that was inside - devices and medical supplies - and the moderate wounding of several people," Doctor Ali Mughli said.
 
Saba said other air strikes hit a nearby girls school and damaged several civilian homes.
 
It was not immediately possible to confirm that report, and a coalition spokesman was not immediately available for comment.