Working with local Yemeni journalists and munitions experts, CNN has established that the weapon that left dozens of children dead on August 9 was a 227 kg laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the top US defence contractors
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A bomb used by the Saudi-led coalition in a devastating attack on a school bus in Yemen was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia, munitions experts told CNN.
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Working with local Yemeni journalists and munitions experts, CNN has established that the weapon that left dozens of children dead on August 9 was a 227 kg laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the top US defence contractors.
The bomb was very similar to the one that wreaked devastation in an attack on a funeral hall in Yemen in October 2016 in which 155 people were killed and hundreds more wounded.
The Saudi coalition blamed "incorrect information" for that strike, admitted it was a mistake and took responsibility.
In the aftermath of the funeral hall attack, former US President Barack Obama banned the sale of precision-guided military technology to Saudi Arabia over "human rights concerns".
The ban was overturned by the Trump administration's then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in March 2017.
The August 9 bomb's impact as it landed on the bus full of excited schoolchildren on a day trip was devastating.
Of the 51 people who died in the airstrike, 40 were children.
The UN has called for a separate investigation into the strike, one of the deadliest since Yemen's war began in early 2015.
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