The Pentagon estimates that dozens of people have been killed in a second U.S. airstrike this month — this one in Yemen, making the death toll of these attacks more than 200.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook announced Tuesday that the latest strike targeted a “training camp” belonging to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which housed “more than 70 AQAP terrorists.”
According to The Guardian, “Micah Zenko, a counter-terrorism analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who tracks the strikes, estimated that the US has carried out 575 airstrikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, killing around 4,000 people, both militants and civilians. The casualty toll from those earlier strikes suggests an average of seven deaths per strike.”
Thus, the recent increase in death tolls and targeting of training camps indicates an apparent change in policy. Zenko further elaborates that targeting larger gatherings of suspects, as opposed to individuals, echoes conventional war and not counter-terrorism.
Pentagon spokesman Maj Ben Sakrisson told The Guardian, “This strike was conducted consistent with the policy for counter-terrorism direct action announced by the president in May 2013.”
What do you think about the recent airstrikes? Let us know in the comments below.
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