US terror drone kills 2 in Yemen

Two people have been killed in a US assassination drone attack in central Yemen, Yemeni military officials say. The unmanned US plane fired missiles at a vehicle, killing both passengers, in the central province of Bayda on Saturday, The Associated Press reported. And on the same day, in the southern city of Abyan, 34 people, including 12 Yemeni soldiers, were killed in clashes with militants that officials identified as al-Qaeda members. Local officials said the soldiers were backed by US drones during the operation. The US military uses remote-controlled drones in Yemen for reconnaissance operations and targeted killings. The United States has come under fire for increasing its drone attacks in the Arab country. The United Nations has criticized the attacks, calling them targeted assassinations that challenge international law. And human rights groups have urged Washington to come clean about one of the deadliest drone attacks, which happened in 2009. The strike in the remote village of al-Majalah in the province of Abyan took the lives of over 40 people, many of them women and children.Also on Saturday, Yemeni protesters took to the streets across the country for anti-regime demonstrations. They called for the restructuring of the army and the sacking of the relatives of deposed Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh formally stepped down and handed over power to Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi in February 2012. The power transfer occurred under a Saudi-backed deal brokered by the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council in April 2011 and signed by Saleh in Riyadh on November 23, 2011. Since January 2011, Yemenis have held numerous demonstrations across the nation to call for political restructuring of the country and to demand the dismissal of members of Saleh’s regime from their government posts.