Yemen drone war: 29 dead in eight days - World War 4 Report

The latest attack came in Hadramout province, where a barrage of eight missiles slammed into a suspected militant safe house on Wednesday, killing six people. "The exact target of today's strike has not been disclosed; no senior AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] leaders have been reported killed in the attack," the Long War Journal notes. Most of those killed were fresh recruits; only one could be considered an extremist veteran, a security official tells CNN. Several others were able to escape the hideout alive.

On Sunday, at least 10 civilians were not so fortunate. They were killed in a strike gone awry near the town of Rada'a in al-Baitha province. An aircraft — believed to be an American drone — fired a pair of missiles at a vehicle supposedly carrying a local AQAP leader. One of the missiles instead hit a nearby minibus.  A 10-year-old girl and her mother were among the dead. "Families attempted to carry the victims' corpses to the capital, Sana'a, to lay them in front of the residence of newly elected President Abdurabu Hadi, but were sent back by local security forces," according to CNN.

"You want us to stay quiet while our wives and brothers are being killed for no reason. This attack is the real terrorism," one Rada'a resident tells the network. Members of parliament and Yemeni human rights groups were quick to condemn the killings, as well.

The U.S. has two separate drone campaigns underway in Yemen — one run by the CIA, the other by the military's Joint Special Operations Command. Together, they've conducted 43 strikes since the start of 2011, according to a Long War Journal tally, killing 274 people in the process. Exactly how many of the 274 were militants is tough to tell; the U.S. "counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants," the New York Times recently reported. As long as someone acts like a terrorists — whatever that means — he could be taken out in a so-called "signature" strike.