US House approves bill to sanction individuals linked to Khashoggi killing

US legislators on Monday passed two measures aimed at clamping down on Saudi Arabia's gross human rights abuses, including a bill to slap sanctions on individuals who ordered or carried out the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution condemning the kingdom for detaining and abusing female human rights activists who had been campaigning against past restrictions, currently lifted, on women driving and traveling without a male guardian, the Washington Post reported.

The US lower house passed the Khashoggi bill, by a vote of 405 to 7, which would oblige the director of national intelligence to identify those behind his murder as well as deny or revoke any visas to the perpetrators.

However, despite bipartisan backing, the new measures may encounter challenges in the Senate, where Republican leaders are at loggerheads with members of their own party and Democrats over several issues, including on how to to punish Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi's murder, the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, and a practice of jailing and torturing activists.

Later this week, the House will reportedly adopt another series of measures aimed at restraining Saudi Arabia's military capacity, with votes on measures to block a set of arms sales the Trump administration approved in May.

On June 20, the Republican-led Senate voted to block US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies.

This came hours after the British government said it would suspend issuing new Saudi licenses for the sale of arms that might be used in the Gulf kingdom's bombing campaign in Yemen.

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