by Rania Khalek on August 7, 2013
Nonstop fear mongering by lawmakers and White House
officials about the allegedly growing threat of Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) has pushed Yemen into the national spotlight as a
country synonymous with terrorism. Yemen is home to the scary bearded
terrorists that want to kill our innocent American children, or so the
mainstream narrative goes. But contrary to popularly indoctrinated
opinion, if anyone is a terrorist in this scenario, it is us, the United
States.
For years, Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries that’s facing a
child hunger crisis, has lived under the paralyzing threat of U.S.
drone strikes.
Yemenis have watched their neighbors, mothers, fathers, grandparents
and children blown to pieces by U.S. bombs all in the name of fighting
terrorism. The end result is that the U.S. government is terrorizing the
people of Yemen and creating more enemies in the process.
Over the past two weeks alone, the U.S. has unleashed
five drone
strikes on Yemen, claiming to have killed around 20 suspected
militants. US and Yemeni officials even bragged that the latest drone
strike thwarted a terrorist plot to seize control of two major cities in
Yemen and bomb oil and gas pipelines. But, according to the
New York Daily News,
the plot “was meant as payback for the killing of senior al Qaeda
official Said al-Shihri in a November drone attack.” (Al-Shihri was
labeled AQAP’s
number two man at the time. Haven’t we killed their number two guy like five times already? Oh right, militants are easily replaceable.)
Blowback is a significant though rarely discussed aspect of the U.S.
war on terror, especially in regard to drone strikes. Investigative
journalist Jeremy Scahill has long
warned that
U.S. counterterrorism policy in Yemen serves as a primary recruiting
tool for Al Qaeda . Why? Because drones strikes don’t just terrorize,
they make people, particularly those who’ve lost innocent loved ones,
really fucking angry. And who can blame them?
Speaking to a Senate Judiciary Committee in April on the legality of drone strikes, a Yemeni man named Farea Al-Muslimi
explained the
roots of blowback in Yemen. “Just six days ago, my village was struck
by a drone, in an attack that terrified thousands of simple, poor
farmers,”
said Al-Muslimi,
“What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village, one
drone strike accomplished in an instant: there is now an intense anger
and growing hatred of America.” Al-Muslimi said he had witnessed “Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula use US strikes to promote its agenda and
try to recruit more terrorists.”
If that’s not enough to convince you that we’re creating enemies, consider the
aftermath of a drone strike last September that killed 13 civilians in Yemen:
Families of the victims closed main roads and vowed to
retaliate. Hundreds of angry armed gunmen joined them and gave the
government a 48-hour deadline to explain the killings, which took place
on Sunday.
“You want us to stay quiet while our wives and brothers are being
killed for no reason. This attack is the real terrorism,” said
Mansoor al-Maweri, who was near the scene of the strike.
Residents are not denying the existence of al Qaeda elements in their
region but say that misdirected strikes work in favor of the militant
group, helping them recruit new operatives.
“I would not be surprised if a hundred tribesmen joined the lines of
al Qaeda as a result of the latest drone mistake,” said Nasr Abdullah,
an activist in the district of the attack. “This part of Yemen takes
revenge very seriously.”
This doesn’t mean that Yemenis love Al Qaeda, it’s quite the
opposite. But compared to the threat of U.S. drone strikes, AQAP isn’t
their primary concern according to Hakim Almasmari, an American
journalist based in Yemen. Almasmari
told the
Huffington Post yesterday
that, ”The Yemeni people are not afraid of al Qaeda, because al Qaeda
will always fight and attack soldiers and troops and militants. They
will never attack civilians. Whereas the drones at times will attack
civilians — like in the last 10 days, out of the 13 who were killed,
three were civilians.”
Almasmari continued, “Yesterday all night you had drones flying all
over Sana’a, and this was very worrying. People were at home sitting and
afraid that this could go wrong like it went wrong earlier years ago
when tens of civilians were killed in previous drone strikes.”
In the winter of 2009, a U.S. airstrike on al-Majala in southern
Yemen wiped out entire families, killing 41 civilians including five
pregnant women and
22 children, the youngest just a year old.
Mohammed Nasser Awad Jaljala, 60, his 30-year-old wife
Nousa, their son Nasser, 6, and daughters Arwa, 4, and Fatima, aged 2,
were all killed.
Then there was 35-year old Ali Mohammed Nasser Jaljala, his wife
Qubla (25), and their four daughters Afrah (9), Zayda (7), Hoda (5) and
Sheikha (4) who all died.
Ahmed Mohammed Nasser Jaljala, 30, was killed alongside his 21-year
old wife Qubla and 50-year old mother Mouhsena. Their daughter Fatima,
aged 13, was the only survivor of the family, badly injured and needing
extensive medical treatment abroad.
The Anbour clan suffered similarly catastrophic losses. Abdullah
Mokbel Salem Louqye died with his wife, son and three daughters. His
brother Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye’s seven-strong family were also wiped
out.
Sheik Saleh Ben Fareed, a tribal leader, went to the area shortly
after the attack and described the carnage to Al Jazeera reporter
Scahill: ‘If somebody has a weak heart, I think they will collapse. You
see goats and sheep all over. You see heads of those who were killed
here and there. You see children. And you cannot tell if this meat
belongs to animals or to human beings. Very sad, very sad.’
Three unnamed victims of the December 17, 2009 strike (Al Jazeera / Bureau of Investigative Reporting)
In case watching one’s family blasted to death isn’t enough, drone
strike victims must now think twice before rushing to the scene of an
attack to help the wounded in case of a “
double-tap“,
a follow-up strike that targets rescuers and mourners and is a war
crime according to UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings
Christof Heyns.
A recently released
report
on U.S. drone strikes in Yemen by Alkarama, a Swiss-based human rights
organization, and HOOD, an organization of Yemeni lawyers and activists,
provides a window into the cruelty of the double-tap.
On May 15, 2012, Abdallah Saleh Hussein witnessed a missile attack on
the home of 33-year-old Nawir Abdallah Al-’Arshani that killed him and
injured several others.
“After the first strike, I rushed to the scene with my son Muhammed,
just like dozens of other people,” said Saleh Hussein. “We were trying
to assist the victims when suddenly a second attack took place. I saw
many bodies shredded.” About 15 minutes after the initial strike, an
aircraft came back and fired several more strikes, killing 13 men and
one woman and injuring dozens, including Saleh Hussein’s son. ”My son
was hit by bomb fragments in the stomach and neck. He died quickly.”
Fear of being killed in a secondary strike prevented onlookers from immediately assisting the wounded, causing one man to
die from his injuries.
Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber (Bureau of Investigative Reporting)
This death and destruction has long-lasting impacts on Yemenis. Al
Jazeera described the
long-term trauma of a U.S. drone strike that killed Sheik Salem Ahmed
bin Ali Jaber, 49, a Yemeni cleric and father of seven.Salem preached
loudly against the type of extremism exhibited by Al Qaeda, which his
family feared would invite violent retribution from Al Qaeda linked
militants. But in the end, it was U.S. violence that ended Salem’s life.
Salem’s brother-in-law, Faisal Ahmed bin Ali Jaber, 54, recounted the
drone strike that killed Salem last year and its aftermath:
“It was after the evening prayer and I was sitting on my
balcony,” Faisal said, recalling that moment. “There was a light and
then a big noise – I thought the mountains would fall.”
Four drone strikes in total, a few minutes apart, violently tore
Salem, Walid and the three visitors to shreds. Amidst the pandemonium,
villagers cowering inside the mosque ran out for safety between strikes,
believing they would die inside.
“You cannot imagine what we found,” said Faisal, drawing a slow, deep
breath as he described the nighttime chaos that followed. “We found
body parts scattered everywhere. We tried to collect them all, and
brought them to the mosque to wrap in white cloth.”
The repercussions were devastating. The villagers marched the next
day, chanting: “Obama, why do you spill our blood?” But President Abd
Rabbu Mansour Hadi met their pleas for answers with silence.
Salem’s mother died two weeks later apparently from shock. Faisal’s
sister Hayat, the mother of Walid, refuses to leave her home, and said
she is “waiting to join my son”. Faisal’s daughter Heba was so stricken
with fear she didn’t leave her home for twenty days. She still needs
psychiatric care.
“The people in the village are so afraid now,” Faisal sighed. “Everything has changed. They think they can be killed anywhere.”
But drone strikes don’t always miss their targets. But even when Al
Qaeda-linked militants are killed, the surrounding community isn’t
spared.
One such incident took place in Azzan, a city of 6,000 inhabitants,
where militants have battled the government for control since 2011 (the
region is rich and oil and gas but economically deprived). The U.S.
military backed the Yemeni government offensive “with air raids and
drone strikes, killing dozens of members of armed groups designated as
‘officers,’ as well as many civilians creating an exodus of thousands of
inhabitants,” according to the Alkarama and HOOD report. So basically
the U.S. was killing people on behalf of the Yemeni government in a
conflict that had nothing to do with the U.S.
On March 30, 2012, a series of drone strikes in Azzan killed two
members of Al Qaeda and a 60-year-old man walking close by. Five
children playing near the strike zone were injured by shrapnel.
“I was sitting with my friends there, and we were going to play
football, when suddenly we were shaken by the sound of a violent
explosion. I looked in front of me and saw a car burning. A missile had
struck it,” said 13-year-old Amin Ali Hassan Al-Wisabi. “Shrapnel hit me
in my foot, but I didn’t feel any pain, and I ran towards the house
with blood flowing from my injury. I saw the car burning beside me and
one of my friends lost consciousness. Someone came with a car and took
us to the hospital.”
Imagine how traumatic such an experience would be for a child to
process. This is what we’re putting Yemeni children through regularly.
Is it any wonder, then, that there are groups out there vowing revenge
on America?
*On a side note, I realize it can be difficult for “Westerners” to
empathize with poor brown people on the other side of the world whose
names are difficult to pronounce, especially when they’re being
demonized in the media. But please keep in mind that Yemenis are human
beings who feel joy and pain just like you, they just happen to live in a
part of the world that’s on the receiving end of U.S. imperialism.
