On September 4, officials of the Yemeni government sent local tribal authorities to look into reports that civilians were among the casualties of a drone attack believed to have been carried out by the United States on September 2. Yemenis protested in response to the 13 civilians, including three women and one child, killed in the Hellfire missile strike. Adding to the outrage was the Yemeni government’s statement that the intended target, Abdelrauf al-Dahab, was “completely missed.”

CNN reports that grieving members of the families of the dead attempted to deliver the bodies to the home of Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Hadi, but were kept out by guards. Notwithstanding the heartache, on September 5 a second drone fired eight missiles, destroying a house in Yemen’s eastern province of Hadramout where five suspected “militants” were believed to be meeting. Again, a Yemeni government spokesman attributed the attack to the United States.

Curiously, the strike came only a day after Obama administration “war czar” John Brennan discussed the increase in militant activity in a phone conversation with President Hadi, according to reports from Saba Net, Yemen’s official news agency. Saba reports, “Mr. Brennan stressed that the USA would support Yemen to carry out the Gulf initiative till the end of the transitional stage and achieve the desired goals.”

Reuters quotes a Yemeni government official’s statement that “five militants were dead and three were injured and managed to escape" in the September 5 attack. Other stories put the number killed at six.

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