TerrorismMassive U.S. attack in Yemen kills “dozens” of AQAP terrorists

A-10 "warthog" showing ordinance loaded // Source: wikipedia.org

A massive U.S. airstrike on a terrorist training camp in Yemen has killed dozens of terrorists belonging to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

This is the second such attack in as many weeks. Military analysts note that the two strikes, in which more than 200 terrorists have been killed, signal a different, if unstated, approach by the Pentagon. Until recently, U.S. strikes on terrorist facilities killed relatively few terrorists.

Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, said late Tuesday that the United States had bombed a mountain redoubt in Yemen used by AQAP. He said it was a “training camp” used by “more than 70 AQAP terrorists.”

The Pentagon did not provide further detail of where in Yemen the training 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.

The BBC reports that on 5 March, a different U.S. airstrike killed an estimated 150 terrorists in Somalia when U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones as well as piloted warplanes targeted an al-Shabaab training camp. The Pentagon said the attack was meant to prevent al-Shabaab attacks on U.S.-aligned African forces in Somalia.

The Pentagon does not provide detailed accounts of counterterrorism strikes, but outside military analysts have said that drone strikes typically kill fewer than a dozen fighters at once, most likely because of the relatively small Hellfire missile carried by U.S. drones. The Pentagon does not usually announce the targeting of training camps or other large gatherings.

Micah Zenko, a counterterrorism analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who tracks drone strikes, estimated that the United States has carried out 575 airstrikes in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, killing around 4,000 people, both militants and civilians. The number of casualty toll from those earlier strikes suggests an average of seven deaths per drone strike.

Zenko suggested that the two most recent strikes in Somalia and Yemen resembled conventional-war airstrikes more than they do targeted killings, the approach he United States had adopted in its war on terror under both the Bush and the Obama administrations.

“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 told the Guardian.

The Pentagon, though, 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 said in his statement that the Yemen strike “demonstrates our commitment to defeating al-Qaida and denying it safe haven.”