US Equipment for War on Terror in Yemen Left in Storage for 8 Years

The US government left millions of dollars’ worth of counterterrorism equipment for Yemen wasting away in a warehouse, GAO report says.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US government left millions of dollars’ worth of counterterrorism equipment for Yemen wasting away in a warehouse in the United States for about eight years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report.

“Since 2007, 200 parcels of equipment Yemen purchased using US government-funded Foreign Military Financing grants remain unshipped in a private warehouse in Virginia rather than [being used]… to counter threats such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),” the report stated on Wednesday.

The US State Department, the report explained, committed $48 million of $108 million in Foreign Military Financing to counter AQAP in Yemen from 2007 to 2014.

The military equipment languished in the warehouse for years, according to the report, because the Yemeni government failed to pay freight forwarders that it had contracted to ship the goods.

The 200 parcels that remain in Virginia include hazardous cargo and low-grade explosives, the report noted.

The embassy of Yemen said it lacks the funds to pay for the shipments because of the country’s ongoing crisis.

AQAP was formed in 2009 when the extremist group's branches in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged into one.

In late March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of mostly Arab states began launching airstrikes against opposition Houthi positions in Yemen at the request of Yemeni President-in-exile Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.

According to the United Nations, some 3,000 Yemenis have been killed since March, 2015 with another 21 million in need of humanitarian aid.