Meanwhile in Yemen...the Use of Lethal Force Against AQAP in Yemen Continues

With all the was-it-legal-to-kill-UBL talk, I'm a bit surprised that this morning's news out of Yemen is getting so little attention.  Jeb Boone at the Washington Post reports that a missile struck a vehicle in Yemen's Shabwa province, killing two brothers associated with AQAP.  There has been no public claim of responsibility for the attack, but Boone presumes that it was a US drone strike. If this is indeed a US strike, this is hardly a  new development.  As Boone writes, the US has repeatedly used missiles (though not always launched from drones) to attack AQAP targets in Yemen over the past two years. Indeed, the nature, scale, and intensity of these military strikes contributes substantially to the argument that a state of armed conflict exists as between the United States and AQAP even if AQAP is not part-and-parcel of "core" al Qaeda. In any event, again assuming this was indeed a US missile strike, it certainly also confirms that the Obama Administration has not shifted to a model in which it uses lethal force only in direct relation to the Af-Pak theater or in circumstances in which there is a strictly immediate threat of violence to forces attempting an arrest.