As I talked with a group of 30 Yemeni youth leaders recently, the message came across loud and clear: US drone attacks against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are short-sighted, ill-fated and create more enemies than they destroy.
While there was broad ideological and political diversity among the group, the youths universally agreed on the ineffectiveness of US counterterrorism policy. They recognize that AQAP is a real and growing threat — in fact, more so to Yemen than to the United States — but contend that more harm than good is being done by the unmanned drone strikes that often hit civilians by mistake.
