US assassination drone raids kill 9 in Pakistan, Yemen

A drone attack in Yemen targeted a car traveling in the country’s southern province of Shabwa on Friday, killing the five people on board. Another drone attack in Yemen hit a vacant building, according to witnesses. In a separate incident early Friday, an airstrike by a US unmanned aerial vehicle in Pakistan killed four people and wounded three others. The attack targeted a house in a market area of Miranshah, the main town in the country’s northwestern North Waziristan tribal region. On January 31, US President Barack Obama confirmed the United States’ use of drones abroad. The American military also uses drones in Somalia, and Afghanistan. In reply to questions about the use of the assassination drones by his administration in a chat with web users on Google and YouTube on Monday, the US president said, “a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA” - Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The US says the operations target militants, although surveys show civilians have also been killed. The aerial attacks were initiated by former US President George W. Bush but have been escalated under President Obama. The United Nations (UN) has denounced Washington’s assassination drone attacks, describing the “targeted killings as a violation of international law.”