SANA, Yemen — Suspected US drone strikes have killed three alleged Al Qaeda 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 US 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.
US drone strikes against suspected Al Qaeda targets have been commonplace in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as a retaliatory measure against the group.
The use of unmanned aircraft as well as airstrikes in the Arab world’s poorest country rose dramatically under President Obama, with data from the Britain-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism showing spikes in attacks, especially in 2012 and 2016.
On Thursday, US 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 US 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 Shi’ite Houthis rebels seized the capital Sana 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 Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, long seen by Washington as among the most dangerous branch of the global terror network, exploited the chaos, seizing territory in the country’s south and east, and the Islamic State 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 United States despite their wrongful deaths.
It cited much higher civilian death tolls than the US intelligence report, saying that hundreds of innocents had been killed by the US strikes across the country since at least 2002.
Associated Press
