Missile Strikes in Yemen and Weapons to Syria: the US Steps Up its Middle East Military Interventions

Monday, April 21, 2014
By Paul Martin

By Patrick Martin
Global Research
April 21, 2014

American drone missile attacks and air strikes killed more than three dozen people in southern Yemen over the weekend. The carnage coincided with press reports that the Obama administration is moving to ship advanced weapons to “rebel” groups fighting the Assad government in Syria.

Washington is waging a nonstop campaign of political and media vilification of Russia for its alleged intervention in Ukraine—where a handful of people have died—even as it intensifies its decades-long military intervention in the Middle East, where US wars and US-instigated civil wars have killed millions.

The death tolls are well known: more than one million in Iraq (1990-1991, 2003-2011); approaching 200,000 in Syria (2011-2014); well over 100,000 in Afghanistan (2001-2014); over 50,000 in Libya (2011); thousands in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Niger, Mali and other countries hit by US drone missile strikes. These figures do not even take into account the thousands killed by US-backed Israeli violence in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza during the same period.

The first American drone missile strike to target Yemen in 2014 killed at least 13 people on Saturday, according to the US-allied Yemeni government. The missile hit a vehicle traveling in the Sawmaa area of al-Bayda province, blasting the car and propelling it 20 meters, while destroying a passing car as well.

The country’s Supreme Security Council described the attack as an air strike carried out by the Yemeni armed forces, the usual cover story for a missile fired by an American-controlled drone. The Obama administration did not publicly acknowledge the attack, its normal practice for drone missile operations conducted by the CIA.

A second round of attacks, carried out on Sunday, killed another 25 people in al-Mahfad, Abyan province, also in southern Yemen, according to Reuters. The news service cited local tribal sources reporting that “unmanned drone aircraft had been circling the target areas beforehand” and that “at least three separate strikes had taken place after dawn prayers.”

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