Geolocation
Airwars assessment
A US drone strike reportedly killed an alleged AQAP militant on a motorbike in Sama’a district, in Bayda governorate, on the evening of January 16th 2018. There were no known associated reports of civilian harm.
Both @demolinari and @AdenNowNews reported that Akram Al-Adeni was killed by a US strike in Sama’a on that day; according to their sources, @AdenNowNews indicated that the strike took place in the evening.
However, another source, @JoshuaKoontz__, suggested only that a pro-AQAP account had claimed that Akram Al-Adeni was killed in a “recent airstrike”. This same source indicated that Al-Adeni may instead have been killed in an earlier US strike in Sama’a on January 9th 2018 (USYEMTr131), which reportedly killed three AQAP militants.
CENTCOM also did not declare a strike in the area for this date, in a lengthy comment to the Long War Journal. Since two sources suggested a discrete strike on the 16th, this event has been assessed as “likely”.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Summary
Sources (5) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (4) [ collapse]
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One source, @JoshuaKoontz__, indicated that Akram Al-Adeni may have been killed in the January 9th-10th strike. Two sources, however, indicated that he may have instead died in an later strike on January 16th 2018. (@demolinari, January 17th 2018)
Geolocation notes (1) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention the Al Suma’a District (مديرية الصومعة) for which the generic coordinates are: 14.166667, 45.831111. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.