Over the course of the war in Afghanistan, several US airstrikes went awry, targeting Afghan wedding parties and killing civilians. Such attacks increased anger in the country against the US presence and against the US-supported government. Now the same thing has happened in Yemen.
On Thursday last week, a US drone fired missiles at a convoy of cars, killing at least 11, many of whom were reported to be civilians, including women and children. Drone strikes are enormously controversial and frequently kill civilians – indeed, this blunder comes seven months after public pressure prompted US President Barack Obama to approve stricter guidelines for drone strikes. Moreover, the uncertainty that accompanies drones – which might hover in the air above a village for many hours – creates fear that fuels resentment. Numerous analysts have argued the drones are enormously counterproductive.
Mistakes such as this put immense pressure on the Yemeni transitional government, which co-operates closely with the US over these strikes. They are, as the country’s foreign minister said in September, “a necessary evil”. But many Yemenis disagree – and especially because of the callous tone often taken by Yemeni officials when discussing the deaths of civilians in these strikes, often implying that they were unlucky, the luck of the draw in a lottery of death.
Not only do drone strikes increase resentment and act as recruiting tools for radical groups like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – which the US says it was targeting in Thursday’s strike – but they also do lasting damage to the delicate national dialogue. The success of that dialogue, which has suffered setbacks in recent weeks, will turn on whether the demands of the southern Hirak movement can be met. With so many drone strikes in southern areas, the pressure increases on the government in Sanaa, and the likelihood of the dialogue succeeding diminishes.
And yet Yemen desperately needs to counter the threat of Al Qaeda, which a week before the drone strike brazenly attacked the defence ministry in Sanaa. The threat from Al Qaeda is real, but smarter ways are needed to combat it. The only way to end the scourge of Al Qaeda is through cooperation with the Yemeni public – the precise group alienated by these attacks.
