Pentagon: US Kills Dozens in Yemen Training Camp Attacks

Officials Say Drone Strikes Involved in the Attacks

The Pentagon has reported that they have killed dozens of people in attacks on a pair of “training camps” in Yemen‘s al-Bayda Province. Officials say drones were involved in the attacks, but did not specify if it was exclusively drone strikes.

The Pentagon’s statement accused ISIS of running the training camps, saying they were training militants to use AK-47s and offering “endurance training.” There’s no evidence who was killed though the Pentagon naturally extended their ISIS claim to say everyone killed was also ISIS.

The Pentagon said they believe ISIS is using “ungoverned spaces” in Yemen to plot attacks. Such a statement is commonly part of such attacks in countries the US is not at war in, as a way of offering some legal justification for the strikes.

But since the US never identifies its victims beyond assuming them to all be part of the targeted faction, and no one else in countries like Yemen are ever able to make such determinations either, everyone slain remains unidentified, and any civilian deaths go unreported.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.