The United States has waged a drone war in Yemen for 16 years, trying to suppress al-Qaeda'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 attacks this year alone, The Associated Press (AP) found that at least 30 of the dead likely did not belong to al-Qaeda.
That is around a third of all those killed in drone attacks so far in 2018. The Pentagon does not release its assessment of the death toll, but an independent database considered one of the most credible in tracking violence in Yemen counted 88 people – fighters and non-fighters – killed by drones this year.
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