(Previous Incident Code: YEM152 )

Two civilians were injured in a suspected US drone attack on a vehicle near the town of Shebwan, Marib province. Tribal sources told Aden al Ghad that the drone strike ‘targeted the vehicle of a young fighter named Jaber Saleh al Shebwani. The missile turned the vehicle into rubble and killed Shebwani as well as two of his companions.’ The Yemen Times reported two people were killed in the attack – al Shebwani and an unnamed Saudi man.

Quoting local sources, Andolu News Agency suggested Shebwani was sleeping by his car when the drone allegedly struck. ‘The fighter Jaber al Shabwani of the Al Shabwan tribe was sleeping near his vehicle in an open area before the drone launched a missile that hit his vehicle and killed him immediately,’ the sources said.

Several members of the Shebwani tribe have been reportedly killed in air strikes in Yemen. Notably, two strikes in January 2010 targeted Ayed al Shabwani (YEM006 and YEM007) and a botched strike in May that year that killed the deputy governor Jaber al Shabwani.

There was some speculation that Jaber Saleh al Shebwani was the deputy governor’s son. However this was eventually quashed on social media and in news reports.

Tribal sources: Mujahid Jabir al-Shabwani, killed in this morning’s Marib drone strike, is not the son of the late deputy governor. #Yemen

— Adam Baron (@adammbaron) March 3, 2014

More detail of al Shebwani emerged in local media. Al Shahaf reported:

He is the son of a respected businessman who works in the oil field and has contracts in Egypt and the UAE and is the head of a business based behind the Japanese Embassy in Sanaa. Activist Hamid Ghareb said that during 2009 clashes with the army in Ma’rib, Shabwani was shot in the hand. He was 14 years old and was released only after his father made a pledge that his son would not return to militancy. According to Ghareb, the prominent AQAP leader Aead al Shabwani…was a far larger influence on Shabwani than his father.

An unnamed interior ministry official told Xinhua two men ‘tending sheep near the targeted car’ were wounded in the attack.

Wasel al Shaif, an official in the governor of Marib’s administration, said armed Shebwani tribesmen retaliated to the drone strike by attacking an oil pipeline in Marib and a military headquarters in the province. Three soldiers were reportedly killed. A military source also reportedly confirmed the strike: ‘A drone had targeted a vehicle carrying members of al Qaeda in the town of Shebwan and had killed three members, amongst them is believed to be a prominent al Qaeda leader.’ The source reported that US drone operations had escalated in recent weeks in Marib province.

Activist Farea al Muslimi reported the exact location of the suspected strike as ‘the village of Akr al Shabwan in al Wadi district,’ Marib province.

This was first time occupied residents areas in Marib are targeted by #US Drone. th man was killed 500 meters from his house. #Yemen #US 3/3

— Farea Al-muslimi (@almuslimi) March 3, 2014

It was not immediately clear when precisely the strike took place, with reports varying between the night of March 2, and the morning of March 3.