Mohammed Mukhasaf / Reuters & Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com – 2017-06-19 01:26:36
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-06-17/two-suspected-al-qaeda-militants-killed-in-yemen-drone-strike
Two Suspected Al Qaeda Militants
Killed in Yemen Drone Strike
Mohammed Mukhasaf / Reuters
ADEN (June 17, 2017) — A suspected US drone strike killed two men believed to be al Qaeda militants in southern Yemen late on Friday, residents and local sources said.
The strike took place in the al Naqba area of Shabwa province where residents heard a loud explosion that they say completely destroyed a vehicle carrying armed people.
Shabwa is one of several provinces in Yemen where al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is active.
Yemen-based AQAP has exploited a more than two-year-old civil war between the Iran-aligned Houthis and President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s Saudi-backed government to enhance its influence in the impoverished country.
The United States has repeatedly attacked AQAP with aircraft and unmanned drones in what US officials say is a campaign to wear down the group’s ability to coordinate attacks abroad.
US Drone Strike Kills Two Suspects in Southern Yemen
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(June 18, 2017) — Late Friday night, a US drone attacked and destroyed a vehicle in the Shabwa Province of southern Yemen, killing two unidentified people within. Residents from the area say they are unsure who the two slain people were.
As is always the case, however, the two slain men were described as “suspects” in reports on the attack, with some suggestion that they might conceivably be members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), speculation built primarily on AQAP being present in the province and the US having destroyed the vehicle.
This is the latest in an increasing number of US drone strikes that have been carried out in Yemen since President Trump took office. The US had been slowing its use of drones in areas where they weren’t directly militarily involved near the end of Obama’s last term.
The growing number of US strikes are bringing attention back to the US drone war, and the extreme lack of transparency the US has offered on drone strikes which are reported to have killed people, with the vast majority of such incidents never publicly commented on at all, and most of the slain left forever in the vague category of “suspects.”
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