SANAA (Reuters) On Jan. 23, science
teacher Ali Nasser al-Qawli had finished supervising school exams in the
Yemeni village of Khawlan and was enjoying an afternoon with friends
when he encountered the strangers.
They wanted a lift in a taxi Qawli and his nephew were in. A while
later, locals say, an American aircraft fired missiles at the
vehicle.
"All of us in the village heard a large explosion," said Qawli's
brother, Mohamed, who rushed to the scene. "We picked up the burned
body parts. They were all over. We picked them up and put them in
plastic bags, and took them to the hospital so we could bury them
the next day," he said. "My brother was completely charred. We
identified him by his teeth. It's as if they killed animals."
A copy of the Khalid bin al-Walid school attendance register shows
Qawli's signature for the first four days of that week. Under
Thursday it says: "Martyred on January 23, 2013."
At the time local sources told Reuters the strike killed at least
six suspected al Qaeda militants.
The Yemeni government now says Qawli, who had three children, and
his nephew were not militants but innocent civilians. In a
statement, it concluded: "We can confirm the following: Ali al-Qawli
... did not know or communicate with the individuals who rented the
mentioned car and their death was a matter of fate."
It was just one instance in which Yemeni civilians have perished in
U.S. drone strikes, which are Washington's favored method of
combating al Qaeda in Yemen.
On Thursday, 15 people on their way to a wedding were killed when an
air strike missed its intended target of suspected militants, Yemeni
officials said. It was not clear whether a drone or a Yemeni
aircraft was responsible for the attack.
The United States says its drone program has been successful in
eliminating members of al Qaeda in various countries. Some Yemenis
say had it not been for such strikes, al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) could have seized more territory across Yemen.
Yemeni foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told Reuters in September
that the drone strikes were a "necessary evil" and a "very limited
affair" that happens in coordination with the Yemeni government.
Other Yemenis, and some U.S. politicians, say the strikes and
civilian casualties are increasing sympathy for AQAP and resentment
against America. AQAP, which has scattered across the country, is
now targeting local police and security officials, who have only
tenuous control in Yemen.
There are near daily suicide attacks on Yemeni police and security
forces, which Yemeni officials blame on suspected AQAP militants. On
December 5 more than 50 people died when an estimated 12 militants
attacked the Yemeni defense ministry compound in Sanaa.
The threat is more than local: Yemen borders oil producer Saudi
Arabia and is next to major shipping routes.
Mohamed, brother of the dead Qawli, told Reuters: "These (drone)
strikes create more terrorism. In our area there was never anyone
linked to al Qaeda. After the strike, everyone in the area started
listening to al Qaeda types, exchanging videos on mobile phones."
He said that many houses in his area now fly a black flag carrying
an Islamic expression of faith a symbol al Qaeda often uses.
U.S. Congressman Alan Grayson, a Democrat representative in Florida,
told Reuters that according to one U.S. official who served in
Yemen, "every drone death yields 50 to 60 new recruits for Al
Qaeda." Grayson, who recently participated in a Congressional
briefing that included relatives of victims of drone strikes,
described the drone policy as "ineffective."
The Yemeni government, struggling to assert control over vast
swathes of territory where rebels and secessionists sometimes hold
sway, tolerates the attacks and does not usually comment on the U.S.
role in specific incidents. But Rajeh Badi, the media advisor to
Yemen's prime minister, told Reuters: "The strikes have caused, in
some instances, the joining of some individuals with AQAP with the
motive of revenge, especially when the strikes target innocents."
Asked about the drone program and civilian casualties, a U.S. State
Department official referred to President Barack Obama's comments in
May in which Obama said that before any strike is made "there must
be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured."
The official added: "Yemen and the United States are robust partners
in the fight against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. We support
the efforts of the Yemeni government and its security forces in
combating AQAP."
SPREAD OF AQAP
Formed in 2009, AQAP has a reputation as one of al Qaeda's most
formidable regional wings, conducting suicide attacks on tourists
and diplomats, and operations against neighboring Saudi Arabia and
U.S. targets abroad.
In 2011 al Qaeda militants charged into the south Yemen towns of
Zinjibar, Jaar and Shuqra in Abyan province and set up Islamic
"emirates" when the country was in the midst of an uprising that
eventually ousted veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh. To broaden
their appeal, the militants renamed themselves Ansar al-Sharia
(Partisans of Islamic Law), appointed spokesmen to deal with the
media and put up signposts and flags.
Abyan's governor, Jamal al-Aqel, faced a big challenge to drive out
the militants, who enjoyed some local support, when he took up his
post in April 2012. "We were running the province and running the
fighting from nine square kilometers," Aqel, who wears a small
pistol on his belt, told Reuters. "Al Qaeda does not move except
within the confines of an environment that helps it to move. I
consider that the environment that used to help is now missing."
Yemeni security forces managed to drive the militants out in June
2012 after more than a year of political turmoil that had taken
Yemen to the brink of civil war.
U.S. officials credit the drone strategy for the fact that AQAP is
no longer able to control territory in Yemen as it did in 2011.
Drone attacks killed several suspected AQAP figures, including Anwar
al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamist militant who orchestrated plots to
bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 and U.S. cargo planes in 2010.
Awlaki was killed in September 2011.
Despite the toll taken on militants, residents in various parts of
Yemen told Reuters they worry that the drone program is
counter-productive. In the capital Sanaa, Abdulrazzaq al-Jamal, a
journalist who has interviewed several members of AQAP, acknowledged
the group has taken some hits from the drones, but said the strikes
have also brought it followers.
"The drones have limited their
movements but it makes their ideology more attractive to people.
When a Yemeni is killed, it doesn't matter whether or not he's al
Qaeda," said Jamal, who was wearing the dagger common among Yemeni
men.
He said some Salafists followers of a strict form of Sunni Islam are angry the strikes are hitting Sunnis, who form the majority in
Yemen, rather than Shi'ite Houthi rebels, who have been fighting the
government for years.
"Going after al Qaeda has made a lot of Salafists closer to them.
Why don't those drones go after armed Shi'ites who call for Death
to America, Death to Israel'," said Jamal, referring to the refrain
many hardline Shi'ites use in Yemen and elsewhere.
"Hundreds of families are seeking revenge from the U.S. so they deal
with that by joining al Qaeda."
In Jaar, a decrepit village in Abyan province where the smell of
fresh fish at the outdoor market hangs in the air, sympathy for the
militants was still evident.
Jaar has seen several attacks, though it is unclear whether by U.S.
drones or by the Yemeni airforce. Burned shells of cars destroyed in
a strike two years ago still sit near mounds of rubble where
one-storey brick homes once stood.
Villagers' accounts differ on whether some of the victims were
members of al Qaeda, but all those Reuters spoke to said some of the
victims had been civilians.
Just off a poorly paved road where motorbikes and donkey carts vied
for space, Hozam, a butcher who stood outside his home, described a
strike that destroyed the house near him where six men had moved in.
"I grabbed the children and took them away as we breathed in
gunpowder and smoke. I saw people bring out severed heads and torn
body parts," he said of the strike which took place in mid-2012.
His wife, Umm Abdallah, said that when militants had controlled the
area, people had had more access to electricity and water. Yemeni
officials say such views are misguided and exaggerated.
Tribal leaders, who have a lot of influence within Yemen's complex
social structure, warn of rising sympathy for al Qaeda. Awad Ahmed
Mohsen from Majallah, a southern village hit by a drone strike that
killed dozens in 2009, told Reuters that America had brought hatred
with its drones.
Asked if more people joined al Qaeda in the wake of attacks that
killed civilians, Mohsen said: "Definitely. And even those who don't
join, now sympathize with al Qaeda because of these strikes, these
violations. Any American they see, they exact revenge, even if it's
a civilian."
NO SILVER BULLET
The strikes have forced the militants to travel in smaller numbers
to avoid detection; but in some ways that makes it harder for
Yemen's security forces to target them.
"What you've got now is a more dispersed AQAP that focuses on
guerrilla tactics and asymmetrical attacks against Yemeni forces,"
said Barbara Leaf, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
the Arabian Peninsula, at a Congressional sub-committee hearing in
November. "I wish there were a silver bullet approach to this. There
isn't, we know it, the Yemenis know it."
At the same hearing Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican representative
in Florida, said: "Al Qaeda has not been decimated, it is not on the
run, it is resurgent throughout the region and Yemen is no
different."
Several drone strikes were launched against suspected militants in
August after authorities detected a plot against U.S. embassies, but
the pace has slowed since then.
Leaf said that continued U.S. support for Yemen's security was
"critical" and acknowledged that while the Yemeni government had the
will to counter AQAP, "it does not have the capacity at this time to
extend security throughout all parts of this country."
Facing a backlash from international rights groups, and an American
public wary of getting involved in more regional conflicts, the U.S.
Senate Intelligence Committee approved a plan to provide greater
oversight of drone strikes, including an annual public accounting of
casualties. But in late November, the House of Representatives voted
against such a move.
Others believe the only long-term answer to militants in the region
is diplomacy. Hamoud Hitar, a former religious endowments minister
in Yemen who headed a rehabilitation program for jailed militants in
the early 2000s, said the way to deal with militants was through
changing their ideology.
Dressed in a crisp white thawb and trim turban at his home in Sanaa,
Hitar said: "Using force only reinforces the ideology of force. We
have to work on (changing) the ideological roots, otherwise
terrorism will continue."
(Additional reporting by Mohamed Ghobari in Sanaa; Writing by Yara
Bayoumy; editing by Richard Woods and Simon Robinson)
