“If you go to the village of Al-Majalah in Yemen, where I was, and you see the unexploded cluster bombs and you have the list and photographic evidence, as I do, of the women and children that represented the vast majority of the deaths in this first strike that Obama authorized on Yemen, those people were murdered by President Obama, on his orders, because there was believed to be someone from Al Qaeda in that area. There’s only one person that’s been identified that had any connection to al Qaeda there, and 21 women and 14 children were killed in that strike and the U.S. tried to cover it up, and say it was a Yemeni strike, and we know from the Wikileaks cables that David Petraeus conspired with the president of Yemen to lie to the world about who did that bombing!  It’s murder, it’s mass murder, when you say, ‘We are going to bomb this area’ because we believe a terrorist is there, and you know that women and children are in the area!!! The United States has an obligation to not bomb that area if they believe that women and children are there. I’m sorry, that’s murder!”-Jeremy Scahill, The Nation.com, interview with MSNBC

“Mistakes made by the U.S. killing innocent women and children has led to a significant recruiting boom, AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] use the pictures of shattered women and kids to stir up anger.”-Gregory Johnsen, Princeton University

“Every time the American attacks increase, they increase the rage of the Yemeni people, especially in al-Qaeda controlled areas. The drones are killing al-Qaeda leaders, but they are also turning them into heroes.”-Mohammed al-Ahmadi, Karama human rights group

“These attacks are making people say, ‘We believe now that al-Qaeda is on the right side’. ”-Salim al-Barakani, his two brothers killed in a U.S. strike in March

“…America can’t seem to hit the people you claim to be fighting.  So if you’re gonna bomb us…because there’re some al-Qaeda people in our area, well we’re gonna join up with those fighting against you. The most dangerous thing, I think, the U.S. is doing, beside murdering innocent people in many cases, is giving people in Yemen or Somalia or Pakistan a non-ideological reason to hate the United States.”-Jeremy Scahill, The Nation.com, interview with MSNBC

“In 2009, when President Obama was first known to have authorized a missile strike on Yemen, U.S. officials said there were no more than 300 core AQAP members. That number has grown in recent years to 700 or more, Yemeni officials and tribal leaders say. In addition, hundreds of tribesmen have joined AQAP in the fight against the U.S. backed Yemeni government.”-Sudarsan Raghavan, The Washington Post

28 May 2012

Five people killed by U.S. drone (UAV) strike in Yemen.  The strike targeted three cars driving on a highway.