That number is down from about 45, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, at its peak.
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Facing criticism of its bombing campaign and a budget crunch from low oil prices, Riyadh is keen to bring an end to the intervention it launched a year ago against Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies, analysts say.
The coalition, which involves several Arab countries, began a military campaign in Yemen in March 2015 aimed at preventing Houthi rebels allied to Iran and forces loyal to Yemen’s deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking power.
“And I think this really is to hide the peanut, because they might remove them from Saudi Arabia, but who’s to say that this is not being conducted from out of Washington, DC, out of another country, etc.”, he said.
There have been repeated strikes on civilian targets.
The decision was “never taken lightly”, said the Paris-based relief agency in a statement on Thursday, condemning the “indiscriminate bombings and unreliable reassurances”.
Following the 15 August aerial bombing of Abs hospital in Hajjah governorate, which killed 19 people and injured 24, MSF has chose to evacuate its staff from the hospitals it supports in Saada and Hajjah governorates in northern Yemen: Haydan, Razeh, Al Gamouri, and Yasnim hospitals in Saada, and Abs and Al Gamouri hospitals in Hajjah.
The US forces assisting the Saudi-led coalition in coordinating air strikes in Yemen have largely withdrawn from Riyadh in an apparent move to distance themselves from the mounting civilian death toll in the 17-month long conflict, Reuters has learned.
US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau expressed deep concern after reports of the hospital strike.
Separate Saudi strikes last week in the same area killed at least 19 people, a lot of them identified by authorities as children at a school in Haydan.Voicing concern about the rising civilian casualties, the US military said Saturday that it had slashed the number of USA advisers supporting the Saudi coalition.A US military spokesman in Bahrain told reporters the USA contingent was cut from 45 military planners to fewer than five.
The rebels have retaliated with cross-border attacks into Saudi Arabia.
In response to Riyadh’s protests, Ban grudgingly agreed in early June to remove the coalition from the list and offer the Saudis an opportunity to make their case to the United Nations that the coalition was taking adequate steps to ensure that children were not being targeted or caught in the crossfire.
“I think that the United States is still going to keep arming the Saudis, replacing the bombs they are dropping on Yemen”. A spokesman from Hadi’s government could not immediately be reached for comment.
Six months after Saudi Arabia said its war in Yemen was winding down, air strikes are again pounding rebels and rockets flying across the border, with no end to the conflict in sight.
McConnaughey said that “if the need arises” the team directly assigned to coalition cooperation could be augmented.
He said the United States advice is always in accordance with global law and the best way to avoid civilian casualties.
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But the Saudis are the ultimate decision-makers.
