So did US drones really kill 60 plus people in Yemen?

[Jefferson23]

10. Policy, malaise:

snip*The White House has deflected questions about a series of drone strikes which are believed to have killed dozens of Al Qaeda militants, including three local chiefs, in Yemen at the weekend.

Yemen's drone wars

Yemen finds itself firmly in the drone crosshairs of the great power of the modern age, Pax Americana, writes Mark Corcoran.

The two-day operation - carried out jointly with the United States - reportedly killed more than 60 militants, making it one of the biggest attacks on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in recent years.

The raids on bases in the rugged mountains of Abyan province on Sunday were among the "most severe" against the jihadist network in Yemen, the country's interior ministry said on its website.

Witnesses say soldiers landed from helicopters soon after the air strikes and appeared to take some of the bodies of those killed.

Yemen's interior ministry said the raids lasted for several hours, adding that "terrorists of Arab and foreign nationalities are among the dead and are in the process of being identified".

It also named three local Al Qaeda chiefs killed in the strikes as Mohammed Salem al-Masheebi, Fawaz Hussein al-Mihrak and Saleh Saeed al-Mehrak.

Mapping the drone war

The New America Foundation maps drone and aircraft strikes carried out by the US in Yemen. (Link redirects to external site).

But when White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked whether well-known leaders or bomb makers were among those targeted, he said: "Now I can't speak to specific operations, but we have a strong collaborative relationship as you know with the Yemeni government and work together on various initiatives to counter the shared threat of AQAP."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-22/yemen-says-55-qaeda-suspects-killed-in-sunday-air-raids/5402652