Saturday, March 31, 2012
(photo: Reuters)
The United States has quietly stepped up its secret war in Yemen, launching dozens of airstrikes, including drones, according to a report by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. U.S. drone attacks in Yemen are now as common as those in Pakistan.
In the month of March alone, the U.S. conducted at least six attacks on Islamic militants associated with al-Qaeda. The most recent assaults centered on Zinjibar, where drones targeted rebels in control of the city. The Yemeni government claimed 30 militants were killed in three strikes. On Friday U.S. drones aimed at a vehicle and a house are said to have killed five militants, as well as one civilian who happened to be in a vehicle going in the opposite direction.
The investigative website reported that more than two dozen “military and CIA strikes involving cruise missiles, aircraft, drones or naval bombardments have taken place in the volatile Gulf nation to date,” killing at least 55 civilians.
The Obama administration has pursued its war in Yemen with little fanfare, and the U.S. media has given it almost no attention. But in Yemen there is one incident that stands out. On December 17, 2009, the U.S. Navy launched a Tomahawk cruise missile intended to kill a known al-Qaeda linked militant, Saleh Mohammed al-Anbouri. However it also caused the deaths of 41 civilians, including 22 children. Three more people died later when they stepped on leftover bomblets.
About two weeks after the strike, U.S. General David Petraeus, now the director of the CIA, met with Yemen’s then-dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh. According to one of the more notorious State Department cables released by WikiLeaks, Saleh assured Petraeus that his government would continue to lie and say “the bombs are ours, not yours.” Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye, who reported the U.S. involvement, has been in prison since August 2010.
-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Arab Spring Brings Steep Rise in US Attacks in Yemen (by Chris Woods and Emma Slater, Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
The Civilian Massacre the US neither Confirms nor Denies (by Chris Woods, Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
Obama Administration Deeply Involved in Criminal Cases in Yemen (by Matt Bewig, AllGov)
Obama’s Secret Assassination Program (by David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Third U.S. Citizen Killed by Obama’s Yemen Drone Strikes was a 16-Year-Old Boy (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov) 
