The Parliament of Yemen has adopted a law, banning the United States from operating drones in Yemen. The legislation was adopted after months of protests over US drone attacks, suspicions of US and Saudi intelligence services collusion with Al-Qaeda militants, and the killing of 17 members of a wedding party in a drone attack a week ago. 

Protests against the United States operations of drones in Yemen have steadily increased and gained public support since August 2013.

On 9 August a US drone attack had, according to official Yemeni reports, killed two unarmed, non-combatant civilians in Yemen’s Lehji province. The death of the two victims increased the number of civilian deaths caused by the drone strikes to 38 in 2013, reported unofficial Yemeni sources. The death toll has been steadily increasing since then.

Meanwhile, Yemeni officials have repeatedly stressed, that the US drone attacks usually cause harm among non-combatants among the civilian population. Often the victims include women and children. It is especially the frequent murder of non-combatant women and children that cause outrage against the USA and frictions between the people and the Parliament on one hand and the USA and interim President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi on the other.

Yemeni Members of Parliament as well as security experts, have repeatedly stressed, that the US drone attacks have very little actual military effect. SEcurity experts stressed, that if the purpose and intention with the attacks is to combat terrorism, rather than creating the basis for recruiting outraged citizens into terrorist organizations, the drone strikes are counterproductive.

M.P’s and military spokespersons also repeatedly stressed, that the Yemeni military is, in fact, combatting al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) very effectively, and that without the use of drones. Over the course of the first week of August, prior to the murder of the two civilians in the Lehji province for example, the military forces of Yemen foiled a plan of al-Qaeda militants to attack and capture the provincial capital of Hadramaut and the cities oil and gas terminals.

The attack on the Ministry of Defense revealed that the terrorists have had access to high-level intelligence.

During the first week of December 2013, an attack by Al-Qaeda militants on Yemen’s Ministry of Defense, which was coordinated in a manner that showed, that the attackers had access to high-level intelligence, substantiated many Yemeni’s suspicions that both US and Saudi intelligence services collude with Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, and that the drone attacks serve the purpose of creating a basis for recruitment into the organization which is used to justify a US military presence in the country.

The drone attack last week, which according to official Yemeni sources killed 17 members of a wedding party and injured scores of others, with both women and children being among the victims, sparked a renewed outburst of outrage against the indiscriminate murdering of Yemeni citizens in drone attacks.

An attempt by US officials to “express their deep regret” over the “accident”, while at the same time attempting to minimize the criminality of the mass murder of civilians by underlining that “the drone operators had thought that the convoy of cars was an Al-Qaeda convoy” only increased the outrage, and prompted members of parliament to ask “whether mass murder was less criminal because an entire convoy was bombed, instead of a single car”.

Also Yemen’s interim President, Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi, who heads the country’s Supreme Security Council, was sharply criticized by members of the public as well as by members of parliament, after he attempted to justify the drone attack by stating that the attack was aimed at a vehicle of a leader of the AQAP.

The Parliament subsequently held a session to pass the new legislation which bans the United States from operating any drones in Yemeni territory and airspace.

The legislation highlights both the importance of protecting all Yemeni citizens from aggression and the importance of maintaining sovereignty over the country’s airspace. Legislation passed by the Parliament of Yemen is not compulsory, which means that interim President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi can chose to override or ignore it.

Ch/L-nsnbc 17.12.2013

http://nsnbc.me/2013/12/17/yemeni-parliament-demands-stop-us-drone-attacks/