Direct proof of use
The BLU-63A/B submunition appeared in the 2014 Yemen Civil War as the bomblet payload of CBU-58 cluster bombs used in Saudi-led coalition air attacks. The Open Source Munitions Portal recorded a 15 August 2015 remnant in Bani Haddad, Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate, identifying an SUU-30H/B dispenser from a CBU-58A/B and noting that the carrier contained 650 BLU-63A/B submunitions.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International separately identified U.S.-made BLU-63 submunitions and CBU-58 components from photographs taken after the 6 January 2016 attack in Sanaa. Both reports connected the remnants to air-dropped cluster munitions used in the city during the Saudi-led coalition campaign.
Sources: OSMP 1545 CBU-58A/B Yemen Remnant, HRW Sanaa Cluster Bombs, Amnesty Sanaa Cluster Munition Statement
Timeline
The documented Yemen record begins with a Hajjah governorate strike on 15 August 2015, when Mwatana reporting cited by OSMP said the Saudi/UAE-led coalition dropped three cluster bombs on Bani Haddad village and used a U.S.-made CBU-58.
On 6 January 2016, investigators documented CBU-58 and BLU-63 remnants in Sanaa after cluster-munition attacks in residential neighborhoods. Human Rights Watch identified BLU-63 submunitions and CBU-58 components from photographs, while Amnesty International reported interviews and photographic review from multiple affected neighborhoods in Mu'een district.
Sources: OSMP 1545 CBU-58A/B Yemen Remnant, HRW Sanaa Cluster Bombs, Amnesty Sanaa Cluster Munition Statement
Narrative
The BLU-63 family was not documented as a separately delivered weapon in Yemen; the evidence ties it to the CBU-58 cluster-bomb system. OSMP's Hajjah entry identifies the dispenser as an air-delivered SUU-30H/B component of a CBU-58A/B, while Human Rights Watch described each CBU-58 as carrying 650 BLU-63 submunitions.
The reported user was the Saudi-led coalition or Saudi/UAE-led coalition. The Sanaa reports noted that coalition officials denied some reported cluster-munition use, but Amnesty International assessed the coalition as the only party in the conflict with the capability to drop bombs from the air in that attack context. The Monitor's Saudi Arabia profile records that Saudi Arabia used cluster munitions in Yemen from 2015 to 2017 and lists earlier U.S. transfers of CBU-58 bombs to Saudi Arabia.
The record therefore supports a narrow conflict-use claim: BLU-63 and BLU-63A/B submunitions were fielded in Yemen when CBU-58-series cluster bombs were dropped during coalition air operations, with documented remnants in Hajjah governorate in 2015 and Sanaa in January 2016.
Sources: OSMP 1545 CBU-58A/B Yemen Remnant, HRW Sanaa Cluster Bombs, Amnesty Sanaa Cluster Munition Statement, HRW Technical Briefing on Yemen Cluster Munitions, The Monitor Saudi Arabia Cluster Munition Profile
