(Previous Incident Codes: YEM139 USYEM158 )

Up to five militants were killed and up to two others were injured by a suspected American unmanned drone which struck multiple cars in the Lahj Province in Southern Yemen on August 10, 2013.

Al Jazeera reported that the drone strike destroyed a vehicle believed to be carrying weapons, and this was echoed by a report published by the BBC. The Times identified one of the dead as Ibrahim al-Asiri, described as one of Al Qaeda’s top bomb-makers, but he was reportedly killed in a strike in 2017. Long War Journal also quoted local source Al Watan as saying that al-Asiri was injured in the strike based on an image of a wounded man. However, Mohammed Albasha, Yemen’s spokesman in Washington, DC tweeted that “Reports that #AQAP’s Chief Bombmaker, Ibrahim alAsiri, was killed or wounded are incorrect.”

ABC News released a statement saying that four suspected operatives were killed and quoted an unnamed U.S. official describing the strike by saying, “We got the operational guys we were after” but did not provide any names of the dead.

The numbers of casualties were difficult to confirm, as Saada Press News Network wrote that five were killed in a bombing by an American drone, while Sky News released a report that two people had been killed and one wounded. The Anadolu Agency reported that an unmanned drone bombed a car near Wadi Bana Bridge and another target in the Al-Mahalla region. @raarr1177 tweeted that five people had been killed by an American drone, while the Mareb Press described the target of the strike as a “saloon” car that was carrying weapons for Al Qaeda, according to security officials. Reuters and the Associated Press both reported that two terror suspects were killed, while the Yemen Post listed three people as killed, and among the victims were foreign nationals from Saudi Arabia. AFP provide another toll that two Al Qaeda operatives were killed, two were injured, and one escaped, adding that no senior operatives or leaders were among those targeted.

Local sources told Xinhua that two drones were still hovering over the area, creating panic among the residents.