Late last August, a 40-year-old cleric named Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber stood up to deliver a speech denouncing Al Qaeda in a village mosque in far eastern Yemen.
It was a brave gesture by a father of seven who commanded great respect
in the community, and it did not go unnoticed. Two days later, three
members of Al Qaeda came to the mosque in the tiny village of Khashamir
after 9 p.m., saying they merely wanted to talk. Mr. Jaber agreed to
meet them, bringing his cousin Waleed Abdullah, a police officer, for
protection.
As the five men stood arguing by a cluster of palm trees, a volley of
remotely operated American missiles shot down from the night sky and
incinerated them all, along with a camel that was tied up nearby.
The killing of Mr. Jaber, just the kind of leader most crucial to
American efforts to eradicate Al Qaeda, was a reminder of the inherent
hazards of the quasi-secret campaign of targeted killings that the
United States is waging against suspected militants not just in Yemen
but also in Pakistan and Somalia. Individual strikes by the Predator and Reaper drones
are almost never discussed publicly by Obama administration officials.
But the clandestine war will receive a rare moment of public scrutiny on
Thursday, when its chief architect, John O. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism adviser, faces a Senate confirmation hearing as President Obama’s nominee for C.I.A. director.
From his basement office in the White House, Mr. Brennan has served as
the principal coordinator of a “kill list” of Qaeda operatives marked
for death, overseeing drone strikes by the military and the C.I.A., and
advising Mr. Obama on which strikes he should approve.
Read More: NY Times
