(Previous Incident Code: YEMT059)

US drone strikes reportedly targeted alleged AQAP militants in the Al Muhajjab district of Al Wade’a in Abyan governorate, overnight from March 30th to March 31st. However several different villages were suggested as the location or locations of the action. There are no known associated reports of civilian harm.

Several sources, including Al Araby, reported that three strikes targeted vehicles in the area, with some suggesting that the strikes took place in Al Souda village. Both Reuters and Shabwa Press indicated that, according to local sources, an overnight strike targeted a car on a road in Al-Wadhi district. The number of casualties from strikes against vehicles were unknown.

Multiple sources, including Reuters, also reported that a strike in the Al Muhajjab area targeted a house where alleged AQAP militants were meeting, killing three including local leader Waddah Muhammad al-Souda.

According to Shabwa Press, al-Souda was instead killed in a house in the village of Al-Mozno, and an air strike targeted “the home of Muhammed al-Megrahi in the village of Al-Kudo“.  It is possible that Al-Mozno and Al-Kudo are distinct, but the context of the Shabwa Press article indicates that al-Souda may have been killed in the home of al-Megrahi, and that one of the villages may lie next to another.

Several sources also indicated that the strikes in Al-Wadhi district damaged electrical infrastructure in the area.

This reported action took place amid a dramatic intensification of US operations against AQAP beginning in early March 2017. On April 3rd, Pentagon spokesperson Captain Jeff Davis said that, from February 28th to the final week of March, fifty US airstrikes were conducted in Yemen.