(Previous Incident Code: YEM168 )

On Thursday a US drone strike reportedly killed four or five people. A local government official told AFP that they were AQAP suspects who were killed in a drone strike on a vehicle.

An unnamed military source told Anadolu Agency: “The drone struck a car carrying Al-Qaeda members in the Bejan district [of Shabwah].”

Witnesses in #Shabwa: #US drone killed five suspected #AQAP militants today in Bayhan district #Yemen.
— Saeed Al-Batati (@saeedalBatati) September 11, 2014

The dead were identified in reports the following day:

Abdullah Ahmed Salem Mubarak (aka Abu Habbah)
Abu Khaled al Awlaki
Abu Kaab
Saif al Shehri – a Saudi citizen
Saud al Daghari

According to the Long War Journal: “Abu Habbah is a known nom de guerre of an important AQAP leader in southern Yemen.”

The Yemeni military discovered a cache of documents during its recent offensive in southern Yemen. These documents identified Habbah as “the military emir of Mahfad and its environs,” Long War Journal reported.

The defence ministry said the attack was carried out by the Yemen Air Force (YAF). However, the YAF is not capable to carry out a precision strike on a moving vehicle. It is incapable of flying at night, according to President Hadi, and has been described to the Bureau as “barely functional” and having insufficient equipment and training to defend its own airspace.