A massive US airstrike in Yemen has killed what the Pentagon estimates is “dozens” of people, the second such mass-casualty strike the US military has undertaken this month.
The two strikes, killing more than 200 people at what the Pentagon described as terrorist training camps, diverged so sharply from the previous years’ worth of relatively low-casualty strikes that observers speculated US policy might have quietly changed.
Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, announced late Tuesday that the US had bombed a mountain redoubt in Yemen used by al-Qaida’s local affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). He said it was a “training camp” used by “more than 70 AQAP terrorists”.
An independent assessment of the actual impact of the strike, to include a full casualty total and civilian impact, was not immediately available. The Pentagon did not provide further detail of where in Yemen the alleged camp was located.
“We continue to assess the results of the operation, but our initial assessment is that dozens of AQAP fighters have been removed from the battlefield,” Cook said in a statement.
The US airstrike happened hours after multiple attacks killed over 30 people and wounded more than 200 in Brussels, although it is unclear if any connection exists between the two events. Islamic State has claimed credit for the Brussels attacks.
On 5 March, a different US airstrike killed an estimated 150 people in Somalia, also targeting what the Pentagon described as a terrorist training camp, this one used by al-Shabaab. The US military predicated the strike, which used MQ-9 Reaper drones as well as piloted warplanes, on preventing al-Shabaab from attacking US-aligned African forces in Somalia. An independent witness contacted by the Guardian described al-Shabaab fighters “collecting dead bodies”.
While all counterterrorism airstrikes during Barack Obama’s presidency have occurred under a veil of official secrecy, years’ worth of outside analysis has suggested that the strikes typically kill fewer than a dozen fighters at once – either by design or due to the relatively small Hellfire missile carried by US drones. Rarely does the Pentagon announce the targeting of training camps or other large gatherings.
Micah Zenko, a counterterrorism analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who tracks the strikes, estimated that the US has carried out 575 airstrikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, killing around 4,000 people, both militants and civilians. The casualty toll from those earlier strikes suggests an average of seven deaths per strike.
Zenko speculated that the two most recent strikes in Somalia and Yemen resembled conventional-war airstrikes more than they do “targeted killings”, the White House’s preferred term for its lethal counterterrorism measures.
“The Somalia and Yemen strikes suggest that the White House has authorized a significant opening of the aperture to target gatherings of suspected terror groups, rather than named individuals who pose imminent threats,” Zenko said.
The White House deferred comment to the Pentagon, which denied any policy shift. “This strike was conducted consistent with the policy for counterterrorism direct action announced by the president in May 2013,” spokesman Maj Ben Sakrisson said.
Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, declared in his initial statement that the Yemen strike “demonstrates our commitment to defeating al-Qaida and denying it safe haven”.
makati1 on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 7:35 am
Exactly WHO are the “terrorists”?
dave thompson on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 7:58 am
Hey NSA and the military industrial media complex, along with all the rest of you oligarchical assholes, we the people are on to your lies and utter bullshit of deception and deceit, all done in our name. We the people will rise and crush you just because we have the numbers.
geopressure on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 8:17 am
Training Pirates to hijack crude oil tankers as soon as the time is right… We killed a bunch of Sudanese a moth or two ago for the same reason…
geopressure on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 8:19 am
somolian, no sudanese…
dissident on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 9:29 am
Of course we have only the reliable word of Uncle Scam to assure us that these were terrorists and not Houthi freedom fighters. BTW, all terrorists are Wahabbi Sunnis. There are no Shi’ite terrorists since they have no irredentist ideology to build some caliphate spanning from Africa to Central Asia.
GregT on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 10:14 am
“the White House has authorized a significant opening of the aperture to target gatherings of suspected terror groups”
Since when was it legally, or morally acceptable, to murder people that are suspected of being capable of carrying out criminal acts at some point in the future?
How long before the same kind of ‘justice’ is served in the motherland?
A very slippery slope.
GregT on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 10:22 am
And what is the morally acceptable ratio of murdered innocents, to murdered suspects? AKA, ‘collateral damage’.
ghung on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 10:35 am
Gosh, I feel so much safer now!
Davy on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 10:48 am
The US has a failed ME policy period. No arguments there by me. It is morally repugnant and indefensible. Yet, I love how the anti-Merkans find the Russian killing in the ME a victory and not to be considered a moral crime. They will justify the killing by the usual arguments but killing is killing. Where does the slippery slope start and end? Where is the morally acceptable to start and to end? The Russians did some serious destruction to combatants and noncombatants alike but that’s OK for many here.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 11:03 am
They dont call him Obama the bomba for nothing. I think he has set a record for bombing more sovereign countrys than any other president in history.
You can even youtube a pretty good rap that tears apart Obama.
Obamanation I believe is the title.
Davy, at least the Russians were quick about it and had a clear mission. How long have we been instigating civil war in Syria? The ruskies went in and bombed the fuck out of Turkeys little oil smuggling biz, allowed Assad to gain momentum, and then went home.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 11:07 am
Now the possibilities of peace talks are actually possible, because no party can completely dominate the area without Russias presence. I mean we cant really throw much support in to overthrow Assad without it being hugely beneficial to ISIS.
Unfortunately I do not think Obama has any real interest in this war stopping, unless Europe starts to suffer more and forces change.
Plantagenet on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 11:14 am
One of the reasons Yemen dissolved into civil war and then into war with KSA in the first place was the massive years-long US drone bombing campaign in Yemen. This US attack is just the most recent. Obama’s strategy for dealing with the middle east seems to be to undermine the existing government —-as in Libya, Yemen and Syria—- until the country dissolves into civil wars between various Islamist militias.
joe on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 11:23 am
Russia is killing Assads enemies. The result? Most of the terrorists negotiating a peace deal and a truce so that the kids of Syria have some nights of silence and no bombs. US backed militants are much more barbaric.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23190533
After ‘the syrian cannibal’ came isis genocide of christians, yazidis, butchering little kids.
Russian boming has been hard, but Russia is bombing cannibals so yes they have to be hard on them, but its worked. America has a very short memory span.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 11:33 am
Plantagenet I agree with your statement there, I saw an article a while back (pretty likely it was on this site) that Yemeni woman had a large increase in miscarriages due to the stress of worrying about drone strikes. I think they were calling it drone syndrome, you here a faint lawn mower motor sound and then the next thing you know you could be getting vaporized, not a humane way to treat a person who may just be innocently attending a wedding.
It seems to be a trend, no accountability for shooting unarmed individuals by the cops, no accountability for the president using the patriot act to wage a global war, in the military, they just use scapegoats.
joe on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 11:33 am
Planty, its called securing the realm, the so called arab spring revolts gave the west the chance it needed to implement its plans
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1438.htm
The first part of the plan failed to defeat Hizbollah, thats probobly the reason why Assad might end up in a position to pass on power and keep his head, unlike Gaddafi.
Just like the Iraq war itself, its failed in many ways to realise the goal it seek, except in one key area, muslim focus on hating the west, stops them focusing on Israel.
HARM on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 11:43 am
@GregT,
See “Minority Report”. Regardless of whether those people were actual terrorists, they were probably *thinking* bad things about us, so deserved to be eliminated regardless.
Hey, and don’t forget that many banks are headquartered in Brussels, and the empire does not like being struck so close to home. Making examples, quelling the public and what not, cheerio…
sunweb on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 12:25 pm
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller
(14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984) was a Protestant pastor and social activist.
Davy on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 12:34 pm
PM, the Russians are not out yet. There is no mission accomplished yet. There is no Putin victory yet. There may be one but time will tell. So far so good for Putin other than he burned through money he needed elsewhere with his Russian economy tanking. The Russians are doing a force reposition. There troops could use some R&R. They moved some planes home big deal. They still have their bases and a maritime presence. Nothing much changed except some Putin PR. They can move forces in quickly if needed but there is still a significant presence there not to mention Iranians and Hezbollah.
frankthetank on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 1:06 pm
These groups must have some idea that they are being monitored? They might want to do their training underground or invest in some SAMs..
PracticalMaina on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 1:10 pm
Davy, the Russians are still there, that is mission accomplished. Their strike force capability is now mostly a defensive, tactical role with the ability to quickly go back to offensive, so they will be blowing up ISIS when they are engaged with Assads troops and not relying on intel and causing great collateral damage. They always had a presence at their bases and managed to not do much in the way of bombing any civilians until recently when they turned up the heat on ISIS IMHO. The Iranians and Hezbollah are a different animal, they are indoctrinated man power and not a standing military in the sense of Russia.
JuanP on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 7:06 pm
I am glad it was not Uruguay!
makati1 on Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 7:10 pm
sunweb, American’s do not realize how close they are to being treated to the same Imperial murder. Drones now fly American skies. Obama made it legal to kill Americans “suspected” of being terrorists, no trial necessary. Now he has said that those Americans speaking out against the Empire are considered “terrorists”. I wonder how long until the first drone killing in the lower 48? This year? Next? Terror is coming to American homes soon. Be patient.
theedrich on Thu, 24th Mar 2016 2:31 am
Fact: Prez Ø hates Whites. That fact must, of course, delight all of the other anti-Whites and White genosuicidists who visit this site. He is the hideous spawn of pampered slut Stanley Ann Dunham and American Communist Negro Frank Marshall Davis, a poet and pornographer. During the feces-colored demoniac’s days at Commie-friendly Occidental College (1979–1981) he roomed with Pakistani boyfriend Hasan Chandoo, a typical rich, swarthy anti-White; he also argued with then 23-old John Drew, founder of the Marxist-socialist club at the college, because Ø wanted a violent, Russian-type Red revolution (as did Drew’s girlfriend of the time, Caroline Boss), whereas Drew, on the basis of his studies, thought it would not be a good fit for the American population. (Drew later earned a Ph.D. from Cornell, and subsequently taught poli sci and economics at Williams College. He also turned coat and became an anti-Communist.)
The Negroid has never changed, only concealed his vicious animosity toward the White race. His political rise had little to do with him, but everything to do with the White Guilt poured out by the Jewish media, supported by Christian pulpitry. The anti-White robots now participating in his death-to-Whitey war have no idea where this bowel movement of theirs comes from. It’s all feeling: they “know” that Whites (especially the males) are bad, and all non-Whites are victims; the latter are, of course, innocent, since all their crimes are somehow due to oppression by Whitey. Such dogmatic certainty has nothing to do with reason and everything to do with subconscious pre-formation by the cultural surround. And we know who controls that.
Considering the facts about Ø’s personal biography and his indifference to the lives of Whites, why would he be any less indifferent to the lives of other types on his road to utopia? According to R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science and a Nobel Peace Prize finalist, and a specialist in death by government, “communist regimes murdered about 148 million.” We notice that the White House Negroid has just spent several days hobnobbing with Cuban Communist murderer Raul Castro in Cuba, including a photo op with a poster of sadistic killer Che Guevara in the background. Mr. Messiah gave the standard valium speeches about how it is good for both America and Cuba to “normalize” their interrelationships. As ISIL suicide murderers were slaughtering over 30 people in Brussels and injuring over 250 others, the dark POTUS was attending a baseball game and performing “wave” gestures with Raul. Brussels was not on his itinerary, so he continued on to Argentina, and talked about how Americans continued their shopping after 9/11.
The entire Syrian/Iraqi charnel house is the direct result of the American elites’ obdurate love of regime-change by population extinction through military means. Hotflash Clitory was the Jungle Bunny’s main agent in ginning up the anti-Assad “civil war” by shipping American weapons from Libya (another success story, of course) on the day our ambassador there was killed. (It was convenient that he is no longer around to tell exactly what Hotflash’s directives in that accomplished mission were.)
So don’t worry, petri-dishlings. Your White-Guilt expiator will take care of things while you snore. He will droningly reduce the civilian population of Allahland for you, while simultaneously pushing millions of paranthropoid “refugees” from the Religion of Peace into White countries, where they can take revenge on their persecutors.
Anonymous on Thu, 24th Mar 2016 4:33 am
Murder IS america’s ‘foreign policy’. The uS has not killed one single ‘militant’ in the last…20-30 years? But they have managed to kill lots of people that simply want the americants to FOAD and let them decide for themselves how they want to live. Or manage their economies, or what currency they want to sell their resources for…..
Practicalmaina on Thu, 24th Mar 2016 10:17 am
Theedrich if Obama hates whites why does he prefer to bomb African and middle eastern nations? Also I’m sure his pockets are full of paper with photos of dead white men on it.
The man lives in the white house, covered in pictures of old white men all around, and he does not step in in any significant way when white cops gun down a black teen who has no lethal weapons on them.