(Previous Incident Code: YEM278)

A US drone strike reportedly killed at least two alleged AQAP militants in the village of Qareidha, Sama’a area of Bayda governorate, on the afternoon of September 9th 2017.

In a later email to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a US Central Command spokesperson confirmed that three strikes were conducted in Bayda governorate on September 9th, killing “several” AQAP members. The two other strikes are thought to comprise a single event at Al Saru.

According to Khabar Agency, a security source said that two were killed and another “seriously wounded” in the US attack at Qareidha. Al-Arabi also reported that two militants were killed in “a Toyota car next to a house in the village”.

Two sources suggested that three people were killed in the strike. Bloomberg referenced a report by Al-Masdar News, though Al-Masdar’s own report on the strike did not appear to offer a casualty number. The other, Khabar Agency, suggested that two were killed and one injured.

This strike came alongside two other reported strikes in the same area (USYEMTr098-C), which reportedly killed at least two alleged AQAP militants in the village of Qareidha. Several sources gave varying estimates of the overall death toll from the three strikes. Most suggested that seven militants were killed or “killed and wounded”.  At the lower end, one source, @Yemenat, suggested that five AQAP members were killed and one wounded. Another Twitter source suggested that ten militants were “killed and injured”.  These overall figures fit into the casualty ranges assessed by Airwars for USYEMTr098-C and USYEMTr100.

While many sources specifically located the strikes in or near Qareidha, a few, including Reuters, indicated that the strikes took place in the area of two villages, named by some as Qareidha and al-Thubayb.

According to Al-Arabi, local sources said that “Al-Qaeda militants arrived in the al-Sama’a district last August, and their appearances indicate that they are not from the area”.  One local language Twitter source suggested that two of those killed were AQAP leaders, though no other sources reported this, and it was unclear to which specific strike the source was referring.