Democracy Now! speaks with filmmaker Nawal Al-Maghafi about her BBC investigative report which reveals new details about how the United Arab Emirates hired American mercenaries to carry out over 100 assassinations in southern Yemen, targeting politicians, imams and members of civil society. Al-Maghafi interviewed several mercenaries for the first time on camera about how they conducted the targeted killings and trained others to run similar operations. “What we’ve seen is a systematic targeting campaign of … political activists, members of Al-Islah, civil society members,” says Al-Maghafi. “It’s just created a climate of fear in southern Yemen.”

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to another story out of Yemen. An investigative report by the BBC has revealed new details about how the United Arab Emirates hired American mercenaries to carry out more than 100 assassinations over a three-year period beginning in 2015. Targets included politicians, imams and members of civil society. The assassinations took place in southern Yemen in areas under the control of the internationally recognized government and were traced to members of a private U.S. security company called Spear Operations Group.

Before we speak with the BBC reporter who worked on the investigation, let’s go to a clip from her report that includes the first on-camera interviews with U.S. mercenaries hired by the UAE for targeted killings in Yemen.

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