(Previous Incident Codes: YEM122 USYEM138 )

An alleged U.S. drone or Saudi strike killed at least three suspected Al Qaeda militants and injured “several others” in the al Jawf province near the Saudi Arabian border on January 22, 2013. One source reported that a member of the National Security Agency who was instructing the drones to their targets was accidentally killed.

A report from France 24 listed a total of five dead militants but no names were released. A Reuters report claimed that four suspected militants were killed as a group of individuals were traveling in an area in which training camps were known to exist. China’s Xinhua published a story claiming that “at least three people” were struck and killed by a drone missile, but the identities of the dead have not been released.

Witnesses reported there were three burnt bodies left after the strike and told AFP that unidentified vehicles sped away from the scene, and that “several others” were wounded. A local official said: “The strike targeted a gathering of Al Qaeda members who had made the area a center for training. One of the cars was hit and everyone inside was killed…the others fled.” Al Masdar quoted a security source who said that one of the so-called “security monitors” of the National Security Agency was killed as a result of incorrect targeting when airstrikes were targeting Al Qaeda members. Tribal sources also told Al Masdar that “a tribal delegation from the “Al-Karb” tribe that lives in the Yemeni-Saudi border areas came to Al-Hajla area in the “Khub Al-Sha`af” district, to demand a dead body found near the site of the accident.” A tweet from @majeb711 specified the location as the Al-Mahashmah area. Bill Roggio from Long War Journal wrote that the CIA used Predator or perhaps Reaper drones and “targeted a gathering of Al Qaeda members who had made the area a center for training”, according to a Yemeni official.

Most reports attributed the strike to US drones. However al Oulyae subsequently reported that Saudi jets carried out the strike. The strike apparently hit a few miles from the Saudi border in al Jawf, which is a desert area of Yemen and a hub for militants crossing between the two countries, according to the Long War Journal. An anonymous official told Xinhua: “A Saudi agent facilitates the fresh US airstrike on two vehicles carrying important commanders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”.