The Saudi school bus bombing in Yemen reportedly used an American-made weapon


The weapon used in the Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen earlier this month that killed 51 people, 40 of them children, and wounded 79 more was manufactured in the United States, CNN reported Friday night.
The bomb in question was reportedly a 500-pound laser-guided MK 82 bomb produced by Lockheed Martin, an American defense contractor. It was identified from numbers on the shrapnel.
The Saudi coalition, which has been credibly accused of war crimes in Yemen, is supported and enabled by the United States. The coalition promised to investigate itself for this attack.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A coalition representative declined to comment on the airstrike while the self-investigation is underway, and a Pentagon representative would not confirm the bomb's origin, instead providing CNN a generic condemnation of civilian casualties.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Tivoli Kopke Porto Gaia Hotel: a foodie haven in Portugal's Douro Valley
The Week Recommends Luxury city hotel with food from a Michelin-starred chef – and plenty of port
-
A zombie volcano is coming back to life, but there is no need to worry just yet
Under the radar Uturuncu's seismic activity is the result of a hydrothermal system
-
Codeword: May 12, 2025
The Week's daily codeword puzzle
-
Trump taps Fox News' Pirro for DC attorney post
speed read The president has named Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington, replacing acting US Attorney Ed Martin
-
Trump, UK's Starmer outline first post-tariff deal
speed read President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Kier Starmer struck a 'historic' agreement to eliminate some of the former's imposed tariffs
-
Fed leaves rates unchanged as Powell warns on tariffs
speed read The Federal Reserve says the risks of higher inflation and unemployment are increasing under Trump's tariffs
-
Denmark to grill US envoy on Greenland spying report
speed read The Trump administration ramped up spying on Greenland, says reporting by The Wall Street Journal
-
Supreme Court allows transgender troop ban
speed read The US Supreme Court will let the Trump administration begin executing its ban on transgender military service members
-
Hollywood confounded by Trump's film tariff idea
speed read President Trump proposed a '100% tariff' on movies 'produced in foreign lands'
-
Trump offers migrants $1,000 to 'self-deport'
speed read The Department of Homeland Security says undocumented immigrants can leave the US in a more 'dignified way'
-
Trump is not sure he must follow the Constitution
speed read When asked about due process for migrants in a TV interview, President Trump said he didn't know whether he had to uphold the Fifth Amendment