An aerial attack in Yemen killed eleven civilians, including three women and
three children, in the town of Radda last week. The atrocity, one of a
growing number of deadly strikes carried out either by US drone aircraft or
by the Yemeni armed forces operating under US direction, also injured
several other civilians in the area.
According to local news sources, the September 2 attack in Radda occurred
when Yemeni military aircraft opened fire on two vehicles traveling through
the town, which is located in the impoverished Al Bayda province, about 100
miles south of the Yemeni capital, Sana'a.
Al Bayda province is a frontline in the civil war between the Yemeni
government and a tribal-based opposition in southern Yemen. Local media
reported that the killings sparked protests in Radda and among tribesmen in
surrounding area.
Yemen's armed forces later took responsibility for the Radda attack, with a
military spokesman claiming that the operation was based on "faulty
intelligence" that the targets were part of a convoy that included Al Qaeda
fighters.
The Yemeni military also claimed that on the same day as the attack in
Radda, two US drone aircraft carried out a separate strike in the southern
city of Hadramawt. The target was Khaled Batis, an alleged Al Qaeda
operative who was connected to the bombing of the French oil tanker Limburg
off the coast of Yemen in 2002.
Batis was killed in the drone strike. A Pentagon spokesman refused to say if
US personnel, intelligence reports or resources had been involved in either
the Radda or Hadramawt operations.
The death toll from the long-running campaign by the US military and the CIA
in Yemen is rising. Presented as a key front in the US "global war on
terror," Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East, with over half the
population living below the poverty line.
The aerial attacks in Radda and Hadramawt came just four days after the
August 29 killing of several suspected Islamist fighters in southern Yemen.
Reportedly carried out by a US drone aircraft, the strike provoked strong
criticism from local tribal leaders, who claimed that one of the dead was a
senior Muslim cleric, Salem bin Ali Jaber.
Commenting on the August 29 attack, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi
told Bloomberg News that his government frequently asked for the help of US
forces "where there is a need against the militants who have gone to plot
terrorist attacks."
Although the US military refuses to release figures on the number of
casualties caused by its operations in Yemen, it is estimated that up to
1000 people have died in scores of US drone strikes and special operations
attacks over the past decade. The Pentagon and the CIA also work closely
with the government and military of Yemen, providing them with advanced
weaponry, intelligence and training for their conflict with various
sectarian, political and tribal opponents.
While the stated target of US operations in Yemen is Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula, accusations of AQAP membership are frequently used by the regime
in Sana'a to justify assassinating its rivals.
Behind the constant invocations of the threat of Al Qaeda, Washington's
bloody role in the country has far more to do with the fact that Yemen
occupies a strategically vital position on the southern border of Saudi
Arabia. It is next to the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, the main shipping lane
connecting the oil fields of the Persian Gulf with the Red Sea, the Suez
Canal, and access to Europe.
With these interests in mind, last year the Obama administration backed the
regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh against a mass uprising of workers,
youth and tribesmen. While hundreds of thousands of anti-government
protesters took to the streets of the capital to protest poverty,
inequality, and dictatorship, Washington backed the regime on the grounds
that Saleh was a bulwark against AQAP.
During the 2011 protests, the Yemeni regime murdered hundreds of
demonstrators without any significant complaint from its sponsors in
Washington. Only when it became clear that a revolutionary situation was
emerging in Yemen that threatened US interests in the entire region,
including the spread of protests into Saudi Arabia, did the Obama
administration and the Saudi monarchy demand that Saleh resign in favor of
his deputy, Vice President Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi.
The "new" regime-which is virtually identical to Saleh's government in terms
of policy and is staffed by many of the same personnel-continues to
slavishly support US imperialism's policies in the region, including the
drone bombing campaign.
The difference in Washington's response to the presence of Al Qaeda in Yemen
compared to Syria provides stark expression of the bogus character of the
so-called war on terror. In Yemen, the alleged activities of AQAP cadres are
used to justify US support for the al-Hadi regime, including the stationing
of significant military and CIA assets in the country.
In Syria, however, Washington is waging a proxy war against the regime of
Bashar al-Assad using various Islamist militant groups-including those with
affiliations to Al Qaeda-as its shock troops.
The apparent contradiction in US policy toward the civil conflicts in Syria
and Yemen in fact reflects the real interests of Washington in the Middle
East. The US military views the Yemeni regime as an ally and base of
operations in the oil-rich region and therefore backs it to the hilt-even
when it is engaged in brutally putting down internal opposition to its rule.
The Assad government, however, is being targeted for regime-change and
assassination because it is allied with Iran, which is viewed as the main
regional obstacle to US hegemony.
In addition to the drive to isolate and ultimately depose the Iranian
government, the explosion of US and European imperialist aggression in the
Middle East and North Africa is driven by class hostility to the mass
uprisings of the "Arab Spring" last year. The ouster of key US assets Zine
El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in revolutionary
movements dominated by the working class terrified the major powers and
their local proxies.
In reaction to these developments, Washington and the Persian Gulf sheikdoms
have sponsored right-wing Islamist forces, including those tied to Al Qaeda,
to repress the working class and impose regimes committed to the defense of
capitalism and the imperialist division of the Middle East.
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Received on Mon Sep 10 2012 - 13:41:43 EDT
