This past weekend drone strikes killed suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen and brought attention to the U.S. backed campaign against the organization’s most active frontline. But critics doubt the effectiveness of such targeted drone strikes, saying they make the situation worse.
Pakistani-American human rights activist Rafia Zakaria is among those critics. She’s a lawyer and columnist for Pakistan's English language newspaper Dawn. Zakaria grew up in Karachi but received most of her higher education in the U.S. She’s currently working on her PhD at Indiana University and since 2009 has served on the board of Amnesty International. She's at the University of South Dakota for a talk on drone warfare and human rights. She stopped by the SDPB Radio studios in Vermillion and discussed the impact drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions have had on her home country.