Yemen conflict highlighted after 55 killed in air raids and drone strikes
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Version 0 of 1. The killing of about 55 people in southern Yemen has highlighted an ongoing US-backed campaign against al-Qaida's most active frontline. Reports from Sana'a and Washington confirmed the deaths in air raids and drone strikes against targets in Shabwa and Abyan provinces, a stronghold of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap). Apparent retaliation followed swiftly, with four Yemeni security officers gunned down in the last 24 hours. The aerial attacks – described by one experienced observer as "massive and unprecedented" – started on Saturday and ended late on Monday. The Yemeni government said on Tuesday night it was investigating whether one of the dead was Ibrahim al-Asiri, a master bombmaker believed to have been involved in several high-profile terrorist plots against western targets, CNN reported from Sana'a. The death total of 55 was announced by Yemen's interior ministry. The Yemeni army said 53 dead included 35 Yemenis and foreigners who were killed in Abyan on Sunday; 12 killed on Monday; three killed in Shabwa on Sunday and three more in Marib on Monday. But the precise US role remained unclear, as did the question of whether victims who were described as "suspected militants" had included civilians, as suggested by eyewitnesses' accounts. Air strikes were launched after a video surfaced of the Aqap leader, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, pledging to fight western "crusaders". The attacks appeared to be a significant escalation of the US and Yemeni campaign against a group that is seen as al-Qaida's most dangerous regional "franchise". Targets reportedly included training camps in mountainous areas as well as several vehicles. Pictures emerged on social media on Tuesday of a Yemeni man beaten to death for allegedly collaborating with intelligence agencies. The BBC, meanwhile, reported that DNA tests were being carried out to establish whether Wuhayshi and al-Asiri were among the victims. Asiri is believed to have built the device his brother used in an abortive assassination attempt on Saudi Arabia's deputy interior minister and the underwear bomb a Nigerian man tried to detonate over the US in 2009. The New York Times quoted US officials as saying that the attacks had been carried out by drones operated by the CIA, but an agency spokesman declined to comment. Other officials said US Special Operations personnel had supported the Yemeni attacks on the ground with intelligence and possibly logistical assistance. The Pentagon declined to discuss the operations. The US has been reported as using Saudi bases for drone operations. Al-Qaida has suffered heavy losses in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent years. But Yemen has become the organisation's most important centre since it was effectively defeated in Saudi Arabia. The US has been criticised for using drone strikes that terrorise local communities and thus encourage, rather than crush, extremism. Experts have noted a sharp increase in support for al-Qaida since the drone campaign started in 2003, suggesting a backlash that has in fact boosted recruitment. "The fact that both the Yemeni and the US governments have relied too heavily on the use of drones as an expedient way to postpone the resolution of the problem rather than having a proper, comprehensive approach to the problem, has contributed to the expansion of al-Qaida in Yemen," the commentator Abdulghani al-Iryani told Reuters. The Long War Journal reported that there have been 11 strikes this year, including four this month, but that there were only 26 in 2013 – down from 41 in 2012. The government acknowledged that three civilians were killed in Saturday's strike in al-Bayda province – the scene of a controversial attack last December in which security officials said 15 people on their way to a wedding were killed. Yemen suffers from a multitude of problems including extreme poverty, illiteracy, a weak central government, corruption and poorly equipped security forces. The poorest country in the Arab world has a rapidly growing population and is also running out of both oil and water. The country's wider crisis will be tackled next week at a conference in London of the Friends of Yemen, a western-Arab forum. |