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Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Codes: YEM087USYEM101)
Between five and eight Al Qaeda members were killed and two others were injured in an alleged airstrike by Yemeni forces on June 15th 2012 in the governorate of Shabwa. There are currently no known reports of civilian harm.
The attack was reportedly carried out in a “mountainous area” of the Shabwa region, though little further details were given. A Ma’rib Press correspondent in Shabwa reported that airstrikes were carried out on Al Qaeda sites in Jabal Saqah and Jabal Bin Atash, resulting in the death of eight members.
A local security official told the Chinese news agency Xinhua that “two senior Al Qaeda commanders” were among the killed militants. Moreover, a local resident claimed to have seen “five corpses on a pick-up truck, all of them burned” while two injured militants were brought to the hospital in Azzan town.
According to Mar’ib Press, the airstrike was part of multiple raids launched by the Yemen Air Forces on Al Qaeda sites in the Shabwa region.
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention a mountainous area in the Shabwa (شبوة) province, and that the injured were taken to a hospital in the town of Azzan (عزان). It is unclear what mountainous area is referred to, as the majority of the Shabwa province could be identified as such. The generic coordinates for the province of Shabwa (شبوة) are: 14.723675, 46.795827. The coordinates for the town of Azzan (عزان) are: 14.3267791, 47.4475743. Due to limited information and satellite imagery available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.