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Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Codes: YEM127 USYEM145 )
On 18th of May 2013, in the third strike of the night, suspected US drones reportedly destroyed a truck filled with explosives in the Al-Mahfad District in the Abyan Governorate, killing at least four people. There are also reports of an unknown number of injured. The majority of reports described the people killed as militants.
A ‘local dignitary‘ told AFP he could not say whether the four ‘were Islamist militants’. According to one report, two of the dead were ‘Arabs’. A tribal sources told local media reported the strike killed nine people, but it seems likely this refers to the total number of militants killed on the same day. A senior leader, Jalal Balaabed (aka Jalal Bl’eed, Talal bin Aidi), was reportedly killed in the attack. He was said to have been al Qaeda’s commander in Abyan’s capital, Zinjibar, when the militant group controlled the province in 2011 and 2012. However al Mahfad district’s security chief Colonel Ahmed al Rab’i said: ‘We don’t have sufficient information to either assert or deny Bl’eed’s death.’ Al Khader Abdulla, a leader of a local state-backed civilian militia, said Bl’eed’s family denied his death in the attack. Jalal was later killed in a US strike in February 2016.
Concerning the number of injured, there is little information. Xinhua news quoted a local residents who stated simply that “Several people were either killed or injured in the bombing” without providing any exact numbers. On the other hand, Al-Masdar Online quoted security officials who stated that all those affected by the strike had been killed.
The strike hit to the north of Jaar. The Yemen Air Force has been called ‘barely functional‘ and in 2012 President Hadi declared it incapable of flying at night, let alone launching precision strikes. On May 13 a Yemeni Su-22 fighter-bomber exploded in mid-air during a training flight over Sanaa, killing the pilot. The Washington Post reported that it was the work of the CIA.
The exact time of the strike is under dispute. Al-Masdar Online quoted a security official who told them that the strike took place late on the evening of the 17th of May. This was also confirmed by sources at AFP and Yemen Times. However, many other new sources claim instead that the strike took place in the early hours of the 18th. AP reports that Yemen security officials claim that the strike happened around dawn on the 18th. This is confirmed by a local official reporting to Reuters. Adenpost, on the other hand, claims the strike took place at midnight.
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention the subdistrict of Al Mahfad (المحفد), for which the generic coordinates are: 14.035477, 46.735870. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.