Yemen Strike on Vehicle Kills 11 Civilians, Website Says

An air strike in central Yemen killed 11 non-combatants, including nine men and two women, an independent Yemeni news website reported.

The attack yesterday in the city of Radaa in al-Baidha province was thought to have missed the intended target, a vehicle carrying an al-Qaeda militant, the al-Masdar website reported. The website said it wasn’t clear whether the strike was launched from a U.S. drone or a Yemeni warplane.

The incident, which the website said provoked anger among tribesmen, follows two separate strikes last week that killed at least 11 suspected militants in the southeastern province of Hadramaut.

The Association of Southern Provinces Clerics called the the Aug. 29 strike, which it said killed a cleric named Salem bin Ali Jaber, “heinous.”

The Yemeni government asks for the help of U.S. drones “where there is a need against the militants who have gone to plot terrorist attacks,” Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said in an interview Aug. 29 with Bloomberg News.

A Defense Department spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale, said “as a general rule, we don’t comment on reports of specific counterterrorism operations in Yemen.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Brendan McGarry in Washington at bmcgarry2@bloomberg.net; Mohammed Hatem in Sana’a, Yemen, at mhatem1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net