Starmer ‘complicit’ in Trump’s Yemen massacre

Royal Air Force (RAF) refuelling planes supported US strikes on Yemen that the Pentagon assessed “more likely than not” resulted in 281 civilian casualties, it has emerged. Britain’s involvement in the operation “may make them complicit in war crimes,” Human Rights Watch told Declassified. The revelation comes just as Andy Burnham has sent military advisers to Saudi Arabia to consider whether Britain can support their escalating war against the Houthis in Yemen. Saudi Arabia is reportedly using British-made and maintained Typhoon jets to strike Yemen, a country which has been repeatedly bombarded by outside powers for more than a decade. Last year saw President Trump directly target the Houthis in Operation Rough Rider, which aimed to stop the group blockading Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea. Britain – then led by Keir Starmer – provided aerial refuelling support during the two-month-long bombing campaign, with RAF Voyager tankers flying at least 25 missions from Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus. The US Department of War has now released its annual “1057” report on civilian harm from military strikes during 2025, shedding more light on what happened in Yemen. It determined that 153 civilians were “likely” killed and a further 243 civilians injured in three particular air strikes during Operation Rough Rider, two of which Britain can be linked to. The acknowledgement included one of the worst strikes for civilian harm ever recorded in Yemen, which experts say raises serious questions about Britain’s potential involvement. Supporting Rough Rider From March to May 2025, RAF Voyager KC2s flew into the northern Red Sea where the USS Harry S Truman and its strike carrier group were stationed for strikes on Yemen. Britain’s then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the RAF “provided routine air-to-air refuelling support” to jets around the US aircraft carrier from which strikes were being launched in order “to aid self-defence”. Flight tracking data collected last year now reveals that RAF Voyagers were providing support while two of the three mass civilian casualty strikes reported by US Central Command (CENTCOM) were being carried out. The deadliest of the bombings hit fuel storage facilities and energy infrastructure at Ras Isa Port on Yemen’s west coast on 17 April 2025. The US War Department acknowledged 251 civilian casualties in the air strike, making it one of the worst ever recorded attacks on civilians in Yemen. First responders were among the casualties. Five paramedics were reportedly killed in the apparent “double-tap” strike with up to 14 individual munitions deployed in the bombing. Video footage posted online showed several fireballs from fuel tanks that were hit. Graphic footage published by Al-Masirah showed overcrowded hospital emergency rooms with the wounded sharing beds. Independent research organisation Airwars identified 84 civilian casualties from the Ras Isa strike by name, including three children. The Pentagon found 80 civilians were likely killed and 171 injured in the attack that a 2025 report by Human Rights Watch said “should be investigated as a war crime.” At the time, CENTCOM said the objective of the strike “was to degrade the economic source of power to the Houthis”. In more than a decade of recording over 25,600 strikes across Yemen, only three strikes caused more civilian harm. Those three previous incidents were all carried out by Saudi Arabia during its 2015-2022 air war against the Houthis, independent airstrikes monitoring group Yemen Data Project (YDP) found. ‘Particularly atrocious’ The strike on Ras Isa port happened between 21:00 and 22:00 local time on 17 April, YDP noted. Flight radar data analysed by Declassified showed an RAF Voyager KC2 departed Akrotiri at 15:35 that same day, flew to the USS Harry S Truman’s location and returned to Cyprus at 23:15. Yemeni Archive, a documentation initiative that verifies human rights violations also extensively investigated the strike. They similarly assessed the bombing began around 21:00 “or no later than 21:41 local time”, coinciding with the RAF Voyager deployment to support the US navy and air force in the Red Sea. Their investigation concluded that the impacted location “was an energy facility, and no visual or testimonial evidence reviewed by Yemeni Archive indicated the presence of military infrastructure or personnel at the time of the attack.” “The UK’s potential involvement in the US strikes on Ras Issa in 2025 may make them complicit in war crimes,” Human Rights Watch researcher for the Middle East Niku Jafarina told Declassified. “Supporting attacks on the port – a critical entrypoint for humanitarian aid – is particularly atrocious considering the immense humanitarian needs in Yemen, where more than half the population doesn’t have adequate access to food”, she added. Dearbhla Minogue, a senior lawyer at Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), also raised concerns about Britain’s complicity. “The US clearly untethered itself from all reasonable and lawful interpretations of precautions and proportionality,” said Minogue. “If the UK can tolerate and involve itself in massacres of civilians of this magnitude without so much as an investigation or course-correction, it cannot seriously claim to value the rule of international law.” Two strikes The 1057 report assessed another strike on 6 April, the timing of which also coincided with RAF KC2 Voyager support. During the hour of 21:00 local time, according to YDP records, the US bombed a residential area in the Al-Hafa area of Shuaub district in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. Five civilians were killed and 25 injured, according to CENTCOM’s assessment. YDP stated three of the fatalities in the strike were children. Declassified collated flight tracking information showed an RAF Voyager KC2 departed Akrotiri at 14:45 on the same day, flying to the USS Harry S Truman location and returning to Cyprus at 23:05. “The UK should have made urgent inquiries into what justified these airstrikes, not only monitoring civilian harm but also monitoring how so many civilians could have been killed in just two strikes,” Minogue told Declassified. All three strikes detailed in the 1057 report were in April last year. By the end of that month, British Typhoon fighter jets joined the bombing directly, carrying out an airstrike south of the capital. No civilian casualties were recorded by YDP in the British strike. No system in place The US Department of War 1057 report takes its name from the numbered section of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which made it a legal requirement for the military to report annually to Congress on civilian harm in its operations. No such legal obligation exists in the UK and Britain has no system in place for recording and assessing civilian harm. Modern warfare is increasingly coalition warfare. Refuelling aircraft, intelligence, logistics and targeting support may sit several steps back from the point of impact, but they are still part of the machinery that makes lethal strikes possible, noted Dr. Iain Overton, executive director at Action on Armed Violence (AOAV). “However much the MOD would have it, accountability does not just stop at the nationality of the aircraft that releases the weapon,” Dr. Overton said. “If they do not properly count civilian deaths, how can they properly investigate them, learn from them or prevent them happening again?” The Pentagon noted in the report to Congress on 11 August that CENTCOM is still assessing a further 15 incidents. Any additional findings could well raise more questions about British complicity in mass casualty bombings and the MOD’s failure to carry out its own monitoring of civilian harm. A study commissioned by the MOD, a summary of which was published earlier this year, stated that the department “does not maintain a central register of civilian harm incidents or allegations”, concluding that existing mitigation measures were “robust” and that civilian harm incidents were “low frequency”. The Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) study, asserted that allegations of civilian harm were mostly “dismissed due to a lack of evidence or because UK forces were not operating in the location identified.” “This essentially means that the UK is incapable of understanding the actual harm its military actions cause to civilians, and therefore incapable of effectively mitigating or responding to it,” said Mae Thompson senior advocacy officer at the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights. AOAV’s Dr. Overton echoed Thompson’s assessment. “If British military assets helped sustain those operations, then the MOD should be saying what role the UK played, what was known about civilian harm afterwards and whether any British assessment was carried out,” said Overton. An MOD spokesperson said: “The UK did not participate in the US Operation ‘Rough Rider’ strikes against Houthi targets. The UK provided routine allied air-to-air refuelling support to aid the self defence of a US aircraft carrier in the region from which the strikes were launched.” “We do not comment on the details of foreign nations’ military operations. Any provision of UK operational support to our allies is provided on a case-by-case basis to ensure it is consistent with UK policy and our legal obligations.”