Drone strikes have
killed at least three alleged al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen’s southwestern
region, security officials said, the first of such killings under the new Trump
administration.The strikes were carried out Saturday in Bayda province, killing
Abu Anis al-Abi, an area field commander, and two others, they said, speaking
on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the
information to journalists, AP reported.
Since
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that left nearly 3,000 dead, drone
strikes have become commonplace against al-Qaeda. But drone strikes rose
dramatically under President Barack Obama, with spikes in drone attacks in 2012
and 2016, the Britain-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism said. Suspected U.S. drone strikes have
killed three alleged al-Qaida operatives in Yemen's southwestern Bayda
province, security and tribal officials said, the first such killings reported
in the country since Donald Trump assumed the U.S. presidency Friday.
The two Saturday strikes killed Abu Anis
al-Abi, an area field commander, and two others, they said, speaking on
condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information
to journalists.U.S. drone strikes against suspected al-Qaida targets have been
commonplace in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and
Washington, as a retaliatory measure against the group. The use of unmanned
aircraft as well as air strikes in the Arab world's poorest country rose
dramatically under President Barack Obama, with data from the
Britain-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism showing spikes in attacks,
especially in 2012 and 2016.
On Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials said
as many as 117 civilians had been killed in drone and other counterterror
attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere during Obama's presidency. It was the
second public assessment issued in response to mounting pressure for more
information about lethal U.S. operations overseas.Human rights and other groups
have criticized the Obama administration, saying it has undercounted civilian
casualties. They also worry that President Trump will more aggressively conduct
drone strikes, which are subject to little oversight from Congress or the
judiciary.
In the years since the drone program began,
Yemen has fallen ever deeper into chaos. A two-year-old civil war began after
Shiite Houthis rebels seized the capital Sanaa and forced the
president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to flee the country. In March 2015, a
Saudi-led military coalition launched an extensive air campaign aimed at
restoring Hadi's government. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, long seen by
Washington as among the most dangerous branches of the global terror network,
exploited the chaos, seizing territory in the country's south and east, and the
Islamic State group has also claimed attacks. The northern region remains under
Houthi control.
On Sunday, Mwatana, one of Yemen's top human
rights groups, released a documentary on civilian victims of drone strikes,
interviewing family members who say their relatives were innocent and they had
received no compensation from the U.S. despite their wrongful deaths.It cited
much higher civilian death tolls than the U.S. intelligence report, saying that
hundreds of innocents had been killed by the U.S. strikes across the country
since at least 2002.
In one segment from Bayda, the same province
where Saturday's drone strikes hit, Ali Abedrabbo Ahmed said his 17-year old
son was only a simple construction worker killed while he was going to work in
a pickup truck with colleagues in 2014, an incident other witnesses
corroborated in the video."Who do we talk to? America? Where is
America?" said Nasser Mohammed Nasser, a survivor from the targeted
convoy. "They would kill two or three from al-Qaida on one hand and 10 or
15 civilians on the other hand. Where is this al-Qaida they claim to be
killing? ... There are many other incidents like ours due to drones."
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