“We can only hope that the US administration\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s internal investigation is robust and that it results in needed policy change and reparation for those affected,\u201d Baraa Shiban of Reprieve stated. <\/p>\n
In response to evidence uncovered by human rights charity Reprieve, the US government will investigate a 2013 drone strike on a Yemeni wedding party that killed 12 civilians and injured 14. An anonymous US official told NBC, in response to footage and testimony collected by Reprieve, that the administration is launching an internal investigation. This is the first time the US government has announced an investigation of a drone strike since President Obama\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s pledge in May 2013 to tighten the rules on drone strikes.<\/p>\n Reprieve investigator Baraa Shiban, said: \u00c5\u201cIn bombing a wedding, the US Government has demonstrated that they either don\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t know or don\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t care who they were targeting. As a result, 12 innocent lives have been lost and many more destroyed. These continuing drone strikes don\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t bolster anyone\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s security\u201dthey only serve to alienate the Yemeni people and undermine the rule of law. We can only hope that the US administration\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s internal investigation is robust and that it results in needed policy change and reparation for those affected.\u201d Reprieve<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n AN\/ISH<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/strong>
The Defense Department\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which carried out the strike on December 12, 2013, claimed that the intended targets were \u00c5\u201cdangerous al Qaeda militants,\u201d including Shawqui Ali Ahmed al Badani. However, an investigation in the days following the strike led by Reprieve\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s investigator in Yemen, Baraa Shiban, found that all those killed and injured in the strike were guests attending a wedding with no known militant connections. The wedding was a local celebration of a marriage connecting families from adjacent villages. Al Badani is from a distant region of the country with no connections to those villages hit in the strike.<\/p>\n