Incident Code
Incident Date
Location
Geolocation
Geolocation
Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Code: USYEM102a)
On June 17th 2012, an alleged airstrike or shelling by the US military or Yemen Air Force caused the death of up to nine civilians in the town of Azzan, Shabwa province. There are currently no known reports of injured.
The US news channel Fox News claimed that six Al Qaeda militants were killed in the strike which was part of an “offensive to rout Al Qaeda from its hideouts”. However, Twitter user @shabbirghewalla put the total death toll at nine, referring only to “Yemeni’s” as being killed and leaving it unclear how many civilians and militants were among the casualties.
Yemeni military officials assumed responsibility for the strike, Fox News reported. This was contested by @shabbirghewalla who reported that the US military was responsible for the attack.
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention the city of Azzan (عزان), for which the generic coordinates are: 14.326170, 47.445905. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.