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Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Codes: YEM128USYEM146)
On May 20th 2013, two young men were killed on a motorcycle in an alleged US drone strike in Rada’a, Bayda’ province. Sources are conflicted as to whether the two men killed were members of Al Qaeda or civilians.
Nashwan News reported that the two men were killed at dawn after leaving a farm in the Khubza area. According to several news agencies, their names were Abo Rabbo Muqbel Muhammad Jar Allah Al-Zobah and Abbad Musaad Abbad Al-Khobzi.
The Yemeni Ministry of Defence confirmed the strike “target[ing] Al Qaeda operatives” and the identities of the two men in an online statement. However, the announcement was withdrawn from the government website hours later, Al Masdar News news agency reported.
Marsad Press said that it could not independently verify the connection of the two victims to Al Qaeda and a tweet from @BaFana3 reported that local press said that the two men killed were not members of Al Qaeda.
A local official told Naswhan News that “an American drone carried out the bombing.”
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Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention the town of Rada’a (رداع), for which the generic coordinates are: 14.415088, 44.840937. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.