Drone hits Yemen wedding; 17 killed
A drone strike on a wedding convoy in Yemen killed 17 people, mostly civilians, medical and security sources said yesterday, adding grist to mounting criticism of the US drone war.
"Some" of the dead in Thursday's strike near the central town of Rada were suspected members of al-Qaeda, but the rest were all civilians with no connection to the jihadist network, a security official said.
The death toll from the two-missile strike rose to 17 overnight, a medical source in the Bayda province town, told AFP.
Two of the dead whose names were released -- Saleh al-Tays and Abdullah al-Tays -- had figured in the past on Yemeni government lists of wanted Al-Qaeda suspects.
But most of those killed were civilian members of the Al-Tays and Al-Ameri clans headed to the wedding, the security official.
He said one of the rockets scored a direct hit on a vehicle carrying at least 10 passengers.
The US military operates all unmanned aircraft flying over Yemen in support of Sanaa's campaign against al-Qaeda and has killed dozens of militants in a sharply intensified campaign this year.
Yemen is the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden and the home base of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which the United States views as the global jihadist network's most dangerous franchise.
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