US drone strikes continue to kill civilians across Yemen’s south and southeast, fueling resentment and leading many locals with no previous ties to al-Qaeda to start taking the group’s anti-US narrative more seriously.
A January drone strike killed civilians, including a science teacher, in Khawlan. The brother of the slain teacher says at the time of the strike he didn’t know anyone who took al-Qaeda seriously in his neighborhood. Since the killings, almost everyone is exchanging al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) videos.
US ‘signature strikes” often target people that even the drone operators haven’t identified, on the grounds that something they were doing looked terrorist-like. Earlier this week, that led to attacking a convoy that turned out to be for a wedding, killing at least 15 civilians.
Most of the time these incidents are considered nothing at all. The Yemeni government dubs everyone slain a “suspected terrorist” no matter how little evidence there is, and on those rare occasions they do admit to civilian deaths, they term them a “necessary evil.”
That’s not setting well with locals in Yemen’s southeast either, many of whom already feel little to no ties to the central government, and are now seeing that government’s unelected president shrug off foreign air strikes as a matter of convenience.
President Hadi was actually elected although he was the only candidate and had the blessing of all those who count including the US Saudi Arabia and the GCC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_Rabbuh_Mansur_Ha…
Hadi was the sole candidate in the presidential election that was held on 21 February 2012. His candidacy was backed by the ruling party as well as the parliamentary opposition.
I still think they should "wipe him off the map."
NBC made a brief although negative comment about the 15 people killed in a wedding party by "mistake" in Yemen. Our local corporate rag the Minneapolis Star Tribune refused to even print one line about this latest Obama genocide.