Obama escalates drone strikes in Yemen

PressTV

The Obama administration has ordered a dramatic increase in the number of drone strikes against targets within southern Yemen, with several launched per week.

Unlike the CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, the attacks in Yemen are being carried out by the military's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and each requires explicit approval from President Obama himself.

Of course the CIA is also keen to start launching a massive number of drone strikes of their own in Yemen, with the organization working hard to expand secret airfields in the region from which to launch the strikes.

In comments at Harvard Law School, Obama aide John Brennan defended the legality of the strikes, insisting that attacks were never going to be restricted to “hot battlefields like Afghanistan” and adding “we reserve the right to take unilateral action if or when other governments are unwilling or unable.” Antiwar

FACTS & FIGURES

The CIA now operates Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft, armed with Hellfire missiles, over at least five countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. CNAS.org

The Yemen program is modeled on the agency's covert program in Pakistan where it is seen as a violation of sovereignty that costs civilian lives. WSJ

Since December 2009, U.S. strikes in Yemen have been carried out by the U.S. military with intelligence support from CIA. WSJ

The CIA program also affords the U.S. greater operational secrecy, and because CIA drones use smaller warheads than most manned military aircraft, U.S. officials hope they will minimize any anti-American backlash in Yemen. WSJ

U.S Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich has strongly criticized the drone strikes by the United States in Pakistan and elsewhere, terming these as "summary executions" and "extra-judicial killings." APP

U.S. to Attack Al-Qaeda Terrorists Beyond ‘Hot Battlefields,’ Brennan Says

Bloomberg
Margaret Taley

The U.S. has the right to strike terrorists in other sovereign countries beyond “hot battlefields” such as Afghanistan, said John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser.

“Because we are engaged in an armed conflict with al- Qaeda, the United States takes the legal position that, in accordance with international law, we have the authority to take action against al-Qaeda and its associated forces without doing a separate self-defense analysis each time,” Brennan said in prepared remarks delivered today to a conference at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“We reserve the right to take unilateral action if or when other governments are unwilling or unable to take the necessary actions themselves,” he said.

Brennan’s address comes a little more than four months after U.S. forces killed al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and as experts inside and outside the Obama administration debate what limits the U.S. should have in killing lower-ranking al-Qaeda operatives in areas of the Middle East and North Africa. The U.S. has conducted strikes against al-Qaeda targets using drones from Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia.

“The United States does not view our authority to use military force against al-Qaeda as being restricted solely to ’hot’ battlefields like Afghanistan,” Brennan said.

Imminent Threats

Some U.S. allies and “others in the international community” disagree with the stance, arguing that action can only be taken in response to an imminent threat, Brennan said.

“Practically speaking, then, the question turns principally on how you define ‘imminence,” he said.
Brennan said because al-Qaeda doesn’t have a traditional force structure or present a threat as a nation-state might, such as massed troops at a border, the concept of imminence “should be broadened.” Increasing numbers of U.S. partners have begun to recognize that, he said.

Because of the need for cooperation in battling terrorists, “the more our views and our allies’ views on these questions converge, without constraining our flexibility, the safer we will be as a country, Brennan, 55, said.

The conference was titled ‘Law, Security and Liberty after 9/11.” In his remarks, Brennan also said that U.S. policy on detention and interrogation must adhere to legal norms.

To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net
 
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net.