ATAQ, Yemen (AP) — The United States has waged a drone war in Yemen for 16 years, trying to suppress al-Qaida's branch here. But the campaign has had a hidden cost: civilians cut down by the drones' missiles.
There is no comprehensive count of civilian deaths because of the difficulty of confirming identities and allegiances of those killed. But in an examination of drone strikes this year alone, The Associated Press found that at least 30 of the dead, or around a third of all those killed in drone strikes in 2018, likely did not belong to al-Qaida.
The AP count gives a glimpse, even if incomplete, into how often civilians are mistakenly hit by drone strikes, at a time when the Trump administration has dramatically ramped up the use of armed drones.
