In Yemen Trump makes 80 drone strikes in last two months

nstead of pursuing a more isolationist and nationalist policy as suggested by some of Trump's campaign rhetoric, Trump has adopted an opposite policy of ramping up U.S. military activity in several different countries including Yemen.

In Yemen, the Pentagon reports that there have been at least 80 airstrikes just in March and April. The latest strike on Sunday is said to have killed five people although another report claims that the strike that destroyed a car in central Maarib Province killed four people. As usual, those killed were said to be "Al-Qaeda suspects" by Yemeni officials. None were publicly identified. Locals say that two of those killed were members of a tribe in the area but they did not know who the other two were. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is the main al-Qaeda-linked group in Yemen but there are also members of the Islamic State(IS) operating in Yemen as well.

AQAP often has ties to local Sunni tribes and cooperates with them in fighting the rebel Houthis who are Shia and have the support of Iran. The Houthis control much of the north and east of Yemen still whereas the formerly exiled government of Mansour Hadi hold the southern port of Aden and surrounding territory as well as the far eastern area of Yemen plus the island of Socotra. Very rarely are any of those slain actually named publicly so it is difficult to verify the alleged Al Qaeda connections of those killed. The drone attacks are widely condemned although Hadi supports them.

The U.S. has not only carried out drone attacks, it also carried out a commando attack the Yakla raid, at the end of January this year shortly after Trump's inauguration:One U.S. Navy SEAL was killed and three other SEALs were wounded in the raid. Between 14 and 25 civilians,[11] including the eight-year-old American daughter of the deceased Al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, were also killed in the raid along with up to 14 enemy combatants.[12] A Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey was destroyed during the operation.

The Trump administration called the operation a success, others claim it was botched and did not even achieve its main aim of capturing or killing a key AQAP leader. The raid is discussed on the attached video.

AQAP is seen by the U.S. as one of the most dangerous branches of the Al-Qaeda global terror network. It has exploited the chaotic situation created by the civil war in Yemen to gain more control and influence in southern and eastern parts of Yemen. Just the day before this strike, a similar strike killed three suspected al-Qaida members in the neighboring province of Shabwa. Both Democratic and Republican hawks no doubt favor Trump's intensification of U.S. involvement in Yemen and elsewhere.

One Navy Seal killed 3 wounded in first Trump commando attack in Yemen

Just a few days after the first drone attacks in Yemen under the Trump presidency took place, Trump authorized a commando attack on an Al Qaeda headquarters in the province of Al-Bayda

The raid was aimed at gathering intelligence about Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP). A US military statement claimed that the raid found "information that will likely provide insight into the planning of future terror plots."A US military official said American forces did not seize any militants or take any prisoners from the site. However, they cl;aimed to have killed 14 AQAP members; including the senior leader Abdul Raouf al-Dhahab. One of the military aircraft was said to have experienced a hard landing and was said to have been intentionally destroyed where it landed. Possibly this description is meant to avoid any suggestion that it could have been shot down.

Medics attending the scene claimed that thirty people were killed including 10 women and 3 children. An anonymous resident near the house that was targeted said:"The operation began at dawn when a drone bombed the home of Abdulraoof al-Dhahab and then helicopters flew up and unloaded paratroopers at his house and killed everyone inside. Next, the gunmen opened fire at the US soldiers who left the area, and the helicopters bombed the gunmen and a number of homes and led to a large number of casualties."A Yemeni security officer and a local corroborated that account. A local resident Fahd said several bodies remained under debris and houses and the local mosque were damaged in the attack. In a message AQAP mourned the death of al-Dhahab and that of other fighters, confirming his death but the message did not say how many Al-Qaeda militants were killed.

According to the grandfather of the 8-year old daughter of former US citizen and Al Qaeda ideologue Anwar Al-Awlaki she was among the children killed in the raid. Nasser al-Awlaki said: "She was hit with a bullet in her neck and suffered for two hours. Why kill children? This is the new administration - it's very sad, a big crime." The last special operations carried out in Yemen were in December of 2014 over 2 years ago. US special forces attempted to rescue an American and a South African captured by Al Qaeda. The two captives were killed in the resulting firefight.

Trump may be trying to show that he will aggressively fight against AQAP. AQAP organized the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in 2015 and has unsuccessfully tried to mount terror attacks against US airliners.

The drone attacks have been protested constantly in Yemen with many criticizing the civilian deaths. The killing of many women and children in this attack will only add to the furor. Back in August 2013 an article noted:Since 2002, US drone strikes in Yemen have claimed the lives of up to 860 people, according to the British Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Most of the strikes were carried out under President Obama. It could not be verified how many of those killed were in fact Al-Qaeda militants.

Even then, critics also argued that the attacks could boost support for AQAP: Yahya Qasseb bin Sahl, a law professor at Aden University, told Reuters that he believes the drone strikes “channel the Yemeni street’s feelings in favor of Al-Qaeda.”

According to one source, locals said that 41 AQAP militants were killed and 16 civilians. The highest death toll provided by locals was 57, including 8 women and children. There were three alleged militant leaders among those killed.

The US is already involved in the civil war between the Houthis who occupy much of the north and the government of President Hadi which is headquartered in Aden after returning from exile in Saudi Arabia. The US provides the Saudi coalition with targeting intelligence and refueling for Saudi and coalition airplanes. US drone strikes make Hadi unpopular as he has consistently supported them in spite of many protests against them. Trump appears to be following the same drone policy as Obama and perhaps will act even more aggressively with more commando raids.

In a statement on the raid, Trump said: "Americans are saddened this morning with news that a life of a heroic service member has been taken in our fight against the evil of radical Islamic terrorism. The sacrifices made by the men and women of our armed forces, and the families they leave behind, are the backbone of the liberty we hold so dear as Americans, united in our pursuit of a safer nation and a freer world." A US official told Fox News that the raid had been in the planning stage before Trump took office but had not been given the green light to go ahead. The Yemeni parliament voted against drone strikes ages ago back in December 2013 as shown on the appended video. Now news articles will be unlikely to refer back to the ethics of drone strikes or consider that they might even constitute war crimes.

Trump carries on Obama policy of drone attacks on Al Qaeda in Yemen

(Jaunary 25)Already Trump has shown that he will carry on using targeted drone strikes as Obama had done. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday strikes were carried out in Yemen killing a number of Al Qaeda militants.

The targets were Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula(AQAP) militants and were the first strikes since Donald Trump took office as president of the United States. US Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokerson said that the targets were in the town of Al-Bayda. Trump did not need to sign off on the strikes. President Obama had earlier given General Joseph Votel of the US Central Command the power to order the raids. According to Davis 5 AQAP members were killed.

Yemen is currently involved in a civil war between Shia Houthi rebels and the internationally-recognized government of Mansour Hadi supported by the Saudis the US and gulf states. Davis said: "(Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) remains a significant threat to the region and the United States,.(Al Qaeda) is using the unrest in Yemen to provide a haven from which to plan future attacks against the US and its interests. We remain committed to defeating (al Qaeda in Yemen) and denying it a safe haven."

In his inauguration speech on Friday Trump vowed to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth. Perhaps the renewed drone strikes are meant to show he means to keep his promise. The US has been conducting drone strikes in Yemen against Al Qaeda since 2002. They are still being justified by the 2001 congressional authorization to use military force against the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. However, some of the attacks have been against the Islamic State that did not even exist at the time.

Trump may very well escalate the drone attacks. Some predict attacks will resume in Pakistan. Trump has chosen members of his administration with contradictory views on the drone program. Trump said during the campaign that the families of terrorists should be attacked and complained that Obama's war against the Islamic State was a politically correct war. Presumably, Trump will not pay any attention to critics who claim drone attacks kill many innocent civilian.

The new director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, said in 20013: "I believe the president needs a lot of space to maneuver.He should have a lot of authority to make decisions about when they've identified someone who is trying to kill Americans, to be able to go in and get them." On the other hand Michael Flynn nominated to be Trump's National Security Adviser said to Al Jazeera in January 2016: "When you drop a bomb from a drone ... you are gonna cause more damage than you're gonna cause good," adding that "there should be a different approach." General James Mattis Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary supported increased air strikes in Yemen. However, he has also warned carrying out drone strikes could give a false impression that a situation was manageable. Trump often picks members of his team who have contradictory views. He always has a choice of choosing to follow the advice of the team member who agrees with him or alternatively defer to a view different than his own.

Yemen govt. official story on Al Qaeda is dubious.

The deal offered Al Qaeda seemed very much of the sort that Karzai offers the Taliban in Afghanistan. The US probably did not appreciate the gesture. The closing and then the rather speedy re0-opening of the embassies is a bit strange given that the group's threat could hardily have been removed in such a short time one would expect. All in all the reports out of Yemen do not always make sense when looked at together!

- News From Antiwar.com - Yemen’s ‘Official’ Story on al-Qaeda Increasingly Dubious

Posted By Jason Ditz

On January 3, the Yemeni government mocked the threat posed by al-Qaeda as “exaggerated,” in the wake of announcements that both the US and Britain intended to close their Yemeni embassies.

Two days later they claimed thousands of troops were fighting al-Qaeda and that the group was on the run. The US praised the move and reopened their embassy, giving the impression that Yemen had somehow successfully “tackled” a global threat in a matter of 48 hours.

Just a few days later, Yemen was fairly publicly offering to make a deal with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a curious move if the war was going as swimmingly as they had claimed.

Details of the “offer” are still a matter of dispute, as al-Qaeda claimed that Yemen had in fact tried to convince them to leave the country before in return for releasing several al-Qaeda detainees. Yemen mocked the deal, claiming the “al-Qaeda stooge” who reported it was just desperate. Still, it is clear a deal (of some sort) was offered.

Not only that, regional politicians in the regions where the fighting is going on are now coming out to admit that the war isn’t going well, and that if anything they are losing the fight against al-Qaeda, with government control become increasingly tenuous.

Yemen govt. opposes any US troops in Yemen

Even though this is from AP, its information seems suspect. There have been many reports that the US was involved in recent strikes against Al Qaeda. The denial that this is so is evidence how much the Yemeni govt. wants to disassociate itself from any agreement with the US for any sort of direct intervention by the US. However there are also no doubt special forces already at work for some time. US intervention may make the situation and the Saleh government could easily fall at which point the US might feel that it was forced to intervene using its favorite justificatory mantra that Yemen was becoming a failed state. Note that in the two cities of Aden and Sanna some long term foreign residents do not take the situation to be too problematic in terms of their security.


Yemen opposes any US troops in terror fight
By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer Lee Keath, Associated Press Writer
10 mins ago

SAN'A, Yemen – Yemen's foreign minister said Wednesday that his country opposes any direct intervention by U.S. or other foreign troops in the fight against al-Qaida.

Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told The Associated Press in an interview that "there is a lot of sensitivity about foreign troops coming to Yemeni territory."

The United States has ramped up its counterterrorism aid to Yemen in an intensified campaign to uproot al-Qaida's offshoot here, which Washington warns has become a "global" threat. U.S. military personnel have already been on the ground training Yemeni security forces in the fight, and intelligence cooperation has increased.

Al-Qirbi said Yemen's government would welcome more military trainers, "but not in any other capacity."

"There is a lot of debate among them about how far they should get involved in Yemen," al-Qirbi said, referring to the United States and its allies. "I'm sure that their experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will be very useful to learn from — that direct intervention complicates things."

So far the U.S. has indicated it is not aiming to deploy ground forces in Yemen. President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, said earlier in the week, "We're not talking about that at this point at all."

But al-Qirbi's comments underscored how Washington must tread carefully as it strengthens its partnership with Yemen's fragile government, which has little control over large parts of the country outside the capital and rules over a population where Islamic conservativism and mistrust of the Unites States is widespread.

There have been media reports that U.S. cruise missile or warplanes were involved in strikes carried out last month against several al-Qaida strongholds, which Yemen says killed at least 30 militants. U.S. officials have not confirmed the reports and Yemen says U.S. help in the attacks was limited to the intelligence level.

Earlier this week, al-Qirbi insisted there is no agreement between Yemen and the United States allowing the American military to use cruise missiles, drones or warplanes in strikes on Yemeni territory, "and there is no proposal for such an agreement."

The issue is highly sensitive for the Yemenis. In 2002, the government was infuriated when U.S. officials made public that U.S. cruise missiles were used in a strike that killed a top al-Qaida figure, Abu Ali al-Harithi — believed to be the mastermind of the 2002 bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen. San'a complained that the exposure embarrassed it before the Yemeni public.

Yemen has intensified its campaign against the hundreds of al-Qaida militants that have built up strongholds in lawless regions of the impoverished mountain nation.

Security forces arrested three suspected al-Qaida militants from a cell that the U.S. has said was linked to a plot against the American or other embassies, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.

The three were captured Tuesday at a hospital where they were being treated after being wounded in clashes with security forces a day earlier. In those clashes, Yemeni forces attacked a group of al-Qaida fighters moving in the mountains in the Arhab region. The troops were aiming to capture al-Qaida's suspected leader in the area, Mohammed Ahmed al-Hanaq, and a relative Nazeeh al-Hanaq, the ministry said.

They escaped, but two fighters with them were killed and several others were wounded.

No identities were given for the captured militants.

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AP correspondent Ahmed al-Haj in San'a contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

U.S. Embassy in Yemen: http://yemen.usembassy.gov/

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