In the past few months major media outlets in the US have begun reporting on Obama’s “shadow” war in Yemen. Underpaid researchers in dark basement offices have probably been spending their nights scouring the internet for evidence of drone, cruise missile, or specter gunship attacks in the most remote parts of Yemen. The director of Yemen’s security forces, General Yahya Muhammad Saleh, is now denying he ever said to CNN in an interview last Wednesday that he was open to US strikes in Yemen after CNN reported as such.
Phrases like “secret mission” are being used by the New York Times to describe an American drone strike on May 25th against suspected al-Qaeda militants in Marib. This particular super-duper-secret drone strike wound up killing the deputy governor of Marib province, Sheikh Jaber al-Shabwani, along with a number of his relatives. Sheikh al-Shabwani was often praised by the Yemeni government for his diligent work in dissuading a great number of young men from joining al-Qaeda and focusing their attention on bettering their own villages and communities.