Mine Center reveals US one-and-a-half ton bomb targeted Sanaa

SANAA, Jul. 11 (YPA) – The Mine Action Center held on Sunday a press conference at the crime scene of the Saudi-led coalition’s targeting of civil defense in the capital, Sanaa, with a US “GBU-24” laser-guided bomb on September 19, 2015.

At the conference, Director of the Mine Action Center, Brigadier Ali Sofra, explained that a mechanical team of the center, after digging for more than two months and descending into the ground for more than 20 meters, extracted the American bomb, which was dropped by the coalition aircraft on the building of the Civil Defense Authority located next to “Al-Thawra Park”, the largest park and popular market, in Al-Hasaba neighborhood.

Brig. Sofra indicated that the GBU-24 bomb sold by the United States of America to limited countries, including Saudi Arabia, has wide-ranging effects with a great destructive ability, and has multiple uses and purposes and different methods of guidance.

“The bomb, which weighs about 1,500 kilograms, is 4.39 meters long and 46 centimeters in diameter, and is equipped with a satellite guidance device, and was widely used in targeting several civilian objects and destroying infrastructure,” Sofra said.

The part that was recovered from the bomb expresses its combat body, not to mention the remaining parts, he added.

Sofra referred that the coalition warplanes bombed several civilian objects in Yemen with this bomb, including Wa’lan Agricultural Complex in Bilad Al-Roos district, a residential neighborhood in the Al-Sabeen District, houses in Sa’wan and Old Sanaa city, Al-Aqil Industrial Complex and Amran Cement Factory.

He touched on the effects of the GBU-24 bomb on animals, causing cancerous diseases, congenital malformations and stillbirths.

In the conference, Brig. Sofra mentioned the GBU-39 and GBU-31 bombs, which the Zionist entity used recently in the Gaza Strip to destroy residential towers. He reviewed the dangers of this type of bomb to civilians, according to the reports of the United Nations and its experts.

He said that the two bombs were used by the coalition in targeting Mastaba market in Hajjah province and Al-Zaydiyah prison in Hodeida province on October 29, 2016, and targeting the Yemen International Company for Food Industries Ltd. in Salif port, the last of which is what was extracted by the center’s mechanical team a month ago.

YPA