that, that includes special forces raids, that includes cruise missile strikes. you know, last year we had two raids that happened on the same morning, one in libya and one in somalia that were both carried out by special forces, and those are boots on the ground. but i think drones have kind of become the buzz word to represent these policies. and rula is right, they are causing harm to our image. every mistake that happens, every civilian killed, is something that people pay attention to across the world. and moreover, these people living in these countries, you know, every innocent yemeni farmer has this constant din of a lawn mower hanging over their heads, not knowing if it s their compound that s mistakenly going to be taken for an al qaeda facility. it will be interesting to see if this hits home in terms of politics. new technologies, in
very hard to try to get to the areas and the fact not only carrying out air strikes and now sent in troops shows how serious it is and how seriously they re going after the targets. follow it is video recently released showing the gathering of aqap members. mohammed jamjoom, thank you for that report. peter bergen calls the campaign president obama s war. i talked to him last hour and asked why. here s what he said. under president george w. bush there was one drone strike and under president obama at least 90 and also additionally some cruise missile strikes and so it s really something campaign that president obama launched as it s mentioned. came in the context of the failed flot to bring down a plane over detroit, the underwear bomb plot and u.s. officials are very concerned about this group which keeps trying to build bombs hard to detect and trying to get them on to american aircraft.
could have been conducted by the u.s., either by the cia or the pentagon. now, sources in the region confirm they were targeting three well-known operatives, al qaeda operatives in the region linked with a training camp in southern yemen, and they had been closely tracked and watched for some time. now, it s important to note here the u.s. is the only country that has carried out these drone strikes in yemen. for perspective, let s turn to cnn analyst peter bergen on how often the u.s. carries out the drone attacks. this is part of a campaign that has been going on since president obama assumed office. there have been 91 drone strikes so far under president obama, and 15 other kinds of cruise missile strikes. so more than 100 taken together, this has cost the group dearly. now, including today s attack, fred, there have been eight attacks by drone in yemen
solution to this and if that doesn t happen, then the president would get the authority to do the military efforts. so i think that that has to be the needle that s being threaded tonight. the whole hearted, you know, full throttle attempt to pursue this diplomatic initiative to it s end and if that doesn t work, also, to build the case for a military strike. let s not forget the massive and international debate over what won t be a land war or any kind on sustained military campaign but perhaps a couple of days of cruise missile strikes and perhaps air strikes they call stand off strikes. does anyone believe that they are getting into a war that will end up that raises an interesting problem is that there are two rational for the action but two groups of people who want some kind of military action. the people who want action that deals with the issue of chemical weapons and the importance of
president obama very foolishly declared over two years ago that he had to go, we ve not been able to deliver on that because unless the united states is prepared to put massive troops on the ground and repeat the iraq debacle all over again, we are not going to be able to dislodge him by supporting this so-called opposition or by these what were promised to be targeted cruise missile strikes. well, what do you think at this point, ambassador, is he someone who is fearful of u.s. action, u.s. retaliation, or is he somebody who believes he s the one who should be feared? what s his mindset right now? well, notwithstanding what dr. leverett just said, it seems that all of us who he wants to put in a category of people, including secretary kerry who he doesn t agree with on this or neoconservatives who happen to be liberal democrats, the fact of the matter is that assad is afraid. he wouldn t be giving these