Several sources reported that brothers Ahmad Abdullah Muhammad Al-Sanbahi Al-Khubezi, aged twelve, and Muhammad Abdullah Muhammad Al-Sanbahi Al-Khubezi, aged ten, were killed by a US strike in Yakla, in the Qifah area of Bayda governorate, overnight from March 5th to March 6th.
According to Hunaradaa, local residents said that an older brother, Omar, survived the strike, which was reported by Al-Masdar Online to have taken place on a mountain road in the village. Hunaradaa also reported that the US drone strike targeted “a car carrying displaced people”, though no other sources corroborated this claim.
Shafaqna reported that the brothers had been tending a herd of goats at the time of the strike. Sources differed on the exact timing of the action, with some indicating that it occurred late on Sunday and others suggesting early Monday morning. According to Reuters, the road was one used by militants in the Yakla area.
Hunaredaa also reported that the brothers’ father had been killed by a US drone strike in 2014, and that the family had fled to Yakla after Houthis allegedly destroyed their home in Khobza village.
One Twitter source also later reported that “five tribal members and two children” were killed as the result of the “Monday drone strikes” in Yakla. It was unclear whether the five reported tribal members were killed in this strike or in a reported distinct second strike in the Qaifa area later that day, or indeed if they were militants or civilians. As such, Airwars presently assesses that a minimum of two civilian children were killed in the strike, with a maximum of seven civilian deaths.
According to Al-Masdar Online, residents reported that a helicopter launched the strike in the village, though others indicated that a drone was responsible for the death of the brothers. Another Twitter source reported that indiscriminate bombing took place in the village. The strike came amidst the reported displacement of civilians and alleged militants from the Yakla area, due to the frequency of alleged US airstrikes. Hunaradaa reported that “dozens” of families had fled Yakla for nearby mountains and valleys in early March, echoed in reporting by journalist Iona Craig of the Intercept.
US Central Command later told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that “they had looked into the allegations in the Reuters reporting and determined they were not credible in accordance with their established procedures”.
Yakla was the target of several alleged US strikes in early March 2017, several of which reportedly targeted alleged AQAP leader Sheikh Abdul Ilah al-Dhahab, who was claimed killed by another US strike on March 3rd 2017 in Marib. Yakla was also the site of a US special forces raid on January 29th 2017, which resulted in the deaths of at least twenty civilians, including at least eleven children.
This event took place amid a dramatic intensification of US operations against AQAP in March 2017. On March 6th, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis announced that forty strikes had been conducted in Yemen over the previous five nights. A day earlier, AFP had reported that AQAP militants had begun to withdraw from several areas, including Yakla, in response to US strikes.
In its May 2018 annual civilian casualty report, the US Department of Defense stated that “there were credible reports of civilian casualties caused by U.S. military actions in Yemen against AQAP and ISIS during 2017”, but did not specify which specific actions these reports referred to. Overall, the Department of Defense assessed that there were credible reports of “approximately 499 civilians killed and approximately 169 civilians injured during 2017”, as a result of US military actions in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
Responding to Airwars’ publication of its Yemen dataset and accompanying report in October 2020, CENTCOM dismissed all but two civilian harm claims under President Trump, asserting that “USCENTCOM conducted a thorough review of the information AirWars provided regarding allegations of potential civilian harm caused by USCENTCOM strikes in Yemen from 2017-2020… The bulk of the information asserted by AirWars, however, did not correspond with dates and locations of U.S. military strikes or raids in Yemen. Other AirWars allegations either did not allege civilian harm or were not assessed as credible upon our review.”
The incident occured in the morning.