Incident Code
Incident Date
Location
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Geolocation
Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Codes: YEM048USYEM055)
Between 16 and 24 militants were killed in a series of alleged US or Yemeni airstrikes on Al Kawd village in the governorate of Abyan on April 8th, 2012, according to local sources. There were no reports of harm to civilians.
According to a tweet from @hbashrbash, 24 Al Qaeda militants were killed in naval missile strikes on the outskirts of Zinjibar. However, it seems likely that this total is combining the 16 militants killed in Al Kawd village and the eight militants killed in a vehicle in southern Yemen (USYEM057-B).
The Yemen Defence Ministry released a statement that “about 16 suspected Al Qaida militants were killed in the al-Kawd area near Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province.” However, Xinhua referred to the airstrikes as Yemeni-US joint air raids.
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention the town of Al Koud (or Al Kawd) (الكود), near the town of Zinjibar (زنجبار) in the governorate of Abyan (أبين). The generic coordinates for the town of Al Koud (الكود) are: 13.086015, 45.364084. Due to limited information and satellite imagery available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.