Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Up to seven civilians were killed and three to five others, including a child, were injured in alleged Yemeni or US airstrikes against the Grand Mosque in Jaar on the 5th of September, 2011.
Civilians Jaber Qassem Salem (72), Hazza Ahmed Atta Baheb, Haidara Mohsen Ali al-Abidi were killed and Omar Qassem (11) among other civilians was injured.
Dawn reported on the incident quoting a Yemeni official who claimed that the accidental strike on the Grand Mosque killed seven and wounded five civilians. “The air force hit the Grand Mosque in Jaar whereas the target was a small mosque held by suspected Al Qaeda militants,” situated on the edge of the town, said the official. Dawn alleged that a medical official in Al-Razi hospital in Jaar confirmed the death toll, and the numbers were reiterated by The National and by several locals.
The National stated that the security force´s original target was the Al Hamza mosque, which was identified as a base and weapons depot for militants. The air strike was a mistake, but a security official claimed that the ”wanted militants were at the area of the attack one hour earlier”, reported CNN. Amnesty added that Ansar al-Shari´a fighters were firing Kalashnikovs at the aircrafts flying over the market near to the mosque. YMN further elaborated on the event and stated that an ally of Ansar al-Sharia, Khaled Abd al-Nabi, fired “anti-aircraft missiles moving from the middle of the public market, which necessitated the warplanes to launch a raid (…) the armed elements fled”.
Moreover, CNN reported that eyewitnesses saw three aircrafts flying over Jaar minutes before the attack, whilst some of the locals argued that they identified a Saudi plane in the attack, Alkarama claims.
Amnesty identified three civilians that were killed in the attack, including 72 year old Jaber Qassem Salem who died of the injuries he sustained a week after the attack. According to a relative: “He went to the mosque before noon prayers so that he would read the Qu’ran… while there, the mosque was hit and a man we knew immediately drove him to al-Razi Hospital. Shortly after arriving at the hospital, the aircraft struck again at or next to al-Razi… the Ansar al-Shari’a members occupying the hospital left him and fled. They then came back and wrapped his wounds with pieces of cloth, not proper medical bandages, and then my family found out that he was injured and took him to Aden.” Other civilians that were killed in the `botched attack` were identified as Hazza Ahmed Atta Baheb, a seller at the market next to the mosque and Haidara Mohsen Ali al-Abidi. Additionally Amnesty reported that several people were injured including 11 year old Omar Quassem, who was injured by flying shrapnel.
MEO further claimed that the mosque was targeted twice by Yemeni forces, and that the civilians were taken to an unidentified hospital in Jaar, confirming the two airstrikes. While Amnesty International reported the strike was carried out by the Yemen Air Force, the NGO said it ‘cannot exclude the possibility that some of the air strikes documented in this report may have been carried out by US drones’.
The incident occured at approximately 12:00 pm local time.
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (24) [ collapse]
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the Jaar Grand Mosque (مسجد جعار الكبير), for which the generic coordinates are: 13.224353, 45.305470. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.