I wish I could say this was a shocker but our drone continue to hurt the wrong people. A new report off Reuters indicates that a Drone attack just killed a Yemen mediator. This person was trying to convince members of a "global militant group" to surrender when he was killed by "mistake".
This has just come in from Reuters.
The Yemeni mediator, who had been trying to persuade members of the global militant group to surrender, was killed instantly in a pre-dawn strike on his car in Yemen's mountainous Maarib province that also killed three other people.
A Yemeni news website seen as aligned with the opposition said the strike was carried out by a drone, a weapon that the Yemen military is not believed to have. U.S. forces helping Yemen fight al Qaeda have used drones in the past, but a U.S. diplomat declined to say if the United States was involved.
"Jaber al-Shabwani, the deputy governor of Maarib, was killed with a number of his relatives and travel companions in an airstrike targeting the Wadi Obeida area, where al Qaeda elements are present," the provincial official, a member of a local council in Maarib, said.
This and the drone success of killing up to 700 civilians in Pakistan is just a stupid policy. A policy that should be illegal since, after all, it is a policy of targeted assassination. Why do we continue doing this? It is counter intuitive at it's best. I mean we just assassinated a guy who was trying to help us. He was also a deputy governor of his province.
Now all we can expect from this is more blow back. Just as has happened in Pakistan. The person who is running the drone program should be fired. This is such an idiotic mess which we continue every day. Speaking of blowback, it has already started.
"The deputy governor was on a mediation mission to persuade al Qaeda elements to hand themselves over to the authorities, but it seems that the airstrike missed its target and struck his car, killing him instantly in addition to three companions," he added, declining to be named. Two others were wounded.
The strike provoked clashes between the army and members of Shabwani's tribe, and the tribesmen attacked the pipeline that ferries crude oil from Maarib, east of the capital Sanaa, to the Red Sea coast, the official said.
It's as if we are doing things just to create more chaos in the Middle East. Yet it is always called it a "mistake". How many times can we call it a "mistake" when it is such a common occurrence?
This is an embarrassment. Heads should roll on this. There should be some accountability on how this f**k up happened. But I fear there won't be because... Well you know why...
Full article here.