(Previous Incident Code: YEM161 )

One sixteen-year-old civilian was killed and one civilian, a Saudi Arabian Diplomat, in a suspected US and Yemen attack on AQAP militants.

Elite US and Yemeni Special Forces soldiers ambushed a car in Shabwa, an eastern Yemeni province to the north of the location of the previous two attacks. At least three people were killed in the attack that may have involved US drones as well as ground forces. First reports of the attack started emerging around 10.30pm local time though some reports had the attack hitting just before midnight on April 20 or shortly after, in the small hours of April 21.

The operation was reportedly either an ambush by the Yemen Army’s Counter-Terrorism Unit and US Special Forces troops from JSOC or a drone strike followed by a Special Forces ground operation to retrieve bodies of suspected senior militants. Yemeni security officials and tribal chiefs reportedly said ‘a local militant commander’, Munnaser al Anbouri, was killed in the attack.

The Times reported Yemeni troops ambushed a four-wheel drive vehicle and, after a gun battle, potentially killed al Asiri. The US-trained CTU forces dropped from helicopters onto the highway in Shabwa before engaging in a brief fire-fight with the occupants of a vehicle thought to have been carrying al Asiri. An unnamed US official subsequently told CNN US forces piloted the Russian-made Yemen Air Force helicopters in the raid. It was not clear precisely which operation the CNN report referred to. The US forces wore night vision equipment, according to the senior US official. This suggests the report corresponds to this strike, the only on of the three to reportedly take place at night. However the report also said US involvement in the operation involved ‘flying Yemeni commandos to a site where they killed scores of suspected al Qaeda members’. This would associate it with the previous attack which killed at least 24 people.

Unnamed US officials told the New York Times the CIA had carried out the drone strikes. And other unnamed US officials told the paper US Special Forces ‘had supported the Yemeni operations on the ground with intelligence and possibly logistical assistance’. NBC News reported this third of three strikes was a Yemeni Special Forces operation. The broadcaster reported that ‘it did not appear any top militants were killed’, according to an anonymous Yemeni source.

Notorious al Qaeda bomb maker Ibrahim al Asiri and AQAP leader Nasser al Wuhayshi were initially reportedly killed either by drones or in the Special Forces ambush. There were reports a high-value target had been killed however sources cautioned that this was not confirmed and US officials said al Asiri and al Wuhayshi were not the target of the three strikes.

The Times subsequently revealed neither al Asiri or al Wuhayshi were among the dead. DNA tests carried out in Saudi Arabia confirmed they were not killed in the attack.

However it seems a 16-year old boy was among the dead. And locals claimed Abdullah al Khalidi, the Saudi Arabian diplomat kidnapped in Yemen in 2012 and held by AQAP, was also killed in the attack.

Al Asiri was one of the top targets in the US covert drone war. In 2009 al Asiri designed the bomb his brother Abdullah al Asiri used in a failed attempt to assassinate Prince Mohammed Bin Nayyaf, then Saudi deputy interior minister. The charge was concealed inside Abdullah’s rectum. Ibrahim al Asiri is also credited with designing the bomb Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab concealed in his underwear bomber that was intended to bring an airliner down over the US on Christmas day 2009.

Militants reportedly stormed a hospital in Azzan, Shabwa province, as well as two smaller clinics in nearby districts. They forced the medical staff out of the facility and brought in fighters for treatment. The men were reportedly wounded in the US-Yemeni raids.

An unnamed US official told Fox News that US Special Forces soldiers had been ‘sifting through the aftermath’ of the weekends drone strikes.

President Abdu Rabbu al Mansour Hadi sent a letter of thanks and the Medal of Bravery to the CTU force that carried out the raid, the state news agency reported. According to the New York Times, US officials had ‘sought to play down the United States’ role’ in the operation to allow Hadi ‘to bolster his domestic credibility and claim credit for the operations’.

Local officials said at least three al Qaeda members had been killed when a US drone fired a missile at the car they were travelling in the early hours of April 21. A Yemeni military source said ‘at least four’ alleged militants were killed when ‘the US unmanned aircraft fired two missiles at a small pick-up truck travelling in a desert road’.

A senior Yemeni official said this was the third of three air strikes on consecutive days. The official said the attacks were part of an ‘unprecedented operation’ that was launched on ‘information that al Qaeda was plotting attacks on vital installations, military and security, as well as foreign interests in Yemen.’ Witnesses said an unmarked helicopter landed at the scene of the strike to retrieve the bodies of those killed.

Four officers and two soldiers were assassinated in the days following this strike. They were shot by gunmen on motorcycles in Sanaa and Mareb provinces.

Type of strike: US-Yemeni Special Forces raid, possible US drone strike

The April 29 Offensive
The Yemen armed forces launched a concerted offensive on April 29, targetting al Qaeda positions in the south and centre of the country. The military attacked AQAP in Abyan and Shabwa provinces. These areas have borne the brunt of the US air war in the country. More than 50% of possible US air strikes recorded by the Bureau have hit these provinces.

Both sides suffered losses. A Yemeni official claimed hundreds of AQAP fighters were killed and sources said scores of Yemeni soldiers had been killed and injured. Thousands of civilians were reportedly displaced by the fighting.

Several foreign fighters were reportedly killed in the operations. Abu Muslim al Uzbeki, an Uzbek fighter, and Abu Islam al Shishani, a Chechen who reportedly fought the Russians in Chechnya, were killed on May 2 and May 3 respectively. However a separate source named al Shishani and a second Chechen as Abu Muslim al Shaishani. A Yemeni official said: ‘Most of those militants are from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somali, [the Russian Republic of] Chechnya and other countries.’ The Long War Journal reported five Saudis were killed Ubadah al Sharori, Abdulrahman al Hutti, Abu Ubaidah Malek al Makki, Hussien al Budwi and Bin Hayzoun.

Al Nakhaie or Mikassa, a Pakistani; Abu Dujana, a Saudi and a man from the Russian Caucuses, Taymour al Dagestani, were reportedly killed in Shabwa. A senior al Qaeda fighter from Algeria, Abu Ayoub al Jazaeri, was also killed. Two French citizens, Mourad Abdullah and Taha al Esawi, were arrested by Yemeni security forces at an airport in the far eastern province of Hadramout.

Senior AQAP member Wael al Waeli was reported dead on May 8. Al Waeli was reportedly responsible for a spate of assassinations and kidnappings, targetting westerners.

Al Waeli was said to have been behind the killing of a French security officer working in Sanaa with the European Union (EU).

The US, EU and other Western governments closed or reduced their diplomatic presence in Sanaa as a result of the Yemeni military offensive. Al Qaeda retaliated to the attacks on their positions in southern and central Yemen by launching attacks on military positions and energy infrastructure in southern al Baida province and central Mareb province.

The terrorist group also attacked government targets in the centre of Sanaa. Four or five guards were killed when the group attacked the presidential palace. And on May 8 gunmen ambushed the defence minister’s convoy however no one was killed or injured in the attack. On May 11 a suicide car bomb killed 12 soldiers and a civilian in an attack on a military base in southeastern Yemen.

Tribal groups reportedly at one point tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement but military sources were said to be bullish, refusing to negotiate.

The Yemeni military launched a major offensive in the same provinces in 2012. AQAP took advantage of the chaos of the youth uprising in 2011 that went on to oust then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The terrorist group took control of several towns in Abyan that year. In 2012 the US and Yemen managed to oust al Qaeda from their positions. US air power played a considerable part in the operations, more than 50% of the air attacks recorded by the Bureau in 2012 hit Abyan.

Though the previous offensive dislodged al Qaeda, the central government did not have sufficient power or authority in the areas to stop the terrorists from returning. The latest attacks reportedly drove al Qaeda from its positions in Abyan and Shabwa. But a shortage of fuel reportedly threatened their ability to hold the gains.