Tripoli, June 7 (ANI): The brother of Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike, said America's use of the remote-controlled drones is inhumane and makes a nonsense of its claims of being a champion of human rights.
"The United States talks human rights and freedoms for all, but the method they used to kill him is savage," The News quoted Abu Bakr al-Qayed, the brother of Abu Yahya al Libi, as saying.The way the Americans killed him is heinous and inhumane. We are in the 21st century and they claim to be civilised and this is how they take out people," he said, speaking from the town of Wadi Otba, south of Libyan capital, Tripoli.
In what was described as a major blow to the militant group, a U.S. drone strike killed Libyan-born Al-Qaeda operative Al Libi in Pakistan on Tuesday.
"Regardless of my brother's ideology, or beliefs, he was a human being and at the end of the day deserves humane treatment," Qayed added.
According to the paper, the attack is likely to fuel an increasingly fierce debate about the legality and morality of the drones, which have become one of the chief U.S. weapons against Al-Qaeda.
For years, considered a covert Central Intelligence Agency programme, the unmanned aircraft can be remotely piloted from thousands of kilometres away and can fire missiles at targets at the push of a button.
White House officials say there is nothing in international law that forbids the use of the drones and that, by killing dangerous insurgents, they are making Americans safer.
That view has been challenged by authorities and rights campaigners in Pakistan, who are angry because many of the strikes have happened on their soil.
Civil liberties groups argue that the strikes are illegal because they take place outside an active battlefield, meaning the rules of law, which allow a combatant to kill their opponent, do not apply. (ANI)
|
|
Comments:
