Yemen Feature: Covering Up the Civilian Deaths from a US Drone Attack (Raghavan)

Funeral in Dhamar, Yemen, after a US drone strike, September 2012 (Photo: Mohamed Mohamed/Xinhua)

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More than three months later, the incident in Radda offers a window into the Yemeni government’s efforts to conceal Washington’s mistakes and the unintended consequences of civilian deaths in American air assaults. In this case, the deaths have bolstered the popularity of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist network’s Yemen affiliate, which has tried to stage attacks on U.S. soil several times.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Assad Shoos Away UN Envoy Annan

2112 GMT: Syria. According to the Local Coordinating Committees, at least 40 people were killed by Assad forces today nationwide:

14 martyrs in Homs, 10 martyrs in Daraa (Tayba, Nawa, Inkhel), 7 martyrs in Damascus Suburbs (Douma, Daraya, Thayabiya), 5 martyrs in Aleppo (Izaz and Atareb), 2 martrs in Idlib and 2 martyrs in Kafr Zeita, Hama.

According to the LCCS, only 2 of those killed were members of the Free Syrian Army - 38 were unarmed civilians.

2033 GMT: Syria. Two videos released today give an impression of the scale of violence reported in the Hamidiyah district of Homs today. The first, 2 minutes long (before it repeats without sound), shows shells falling on the district at the center of what was once Syria's 4th largest city. The second video, more than 10 minutes of nearly constant shelling and gunfire, as smoke fills the sky:

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Tunisia Snapshot: US Media Try to Interpret the Uprising

UPDATE 0830 GMT: Mona Eltahawy, one of the most prominent activists on Twitter, has filmed a report for Time magazine on Tunisia, Youth, and Social Media:

Now that President Ben Ali has been toppled in Tunisia, international media are putting reporters into Tunis and interpreting what has and what will happen.

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