Airwars assessment
At least five alleged AQAP militants were reportedly killed by a US drone strike in Al-Jamajem area, Tayab, in the Dhi Naseem district of Bayda governorate, overnight from June 24th-25th 2019. In an email to Airwars, US Central Command later confirmed that a strike had taken place on June 24th. Since there were no other reports of a strike on that day, this event is treated as declared.
Those killed were named by multiple local sources, including Al-Masdar Online, Al-Arabiya, and Sputnik, as ‘[prominent’ AQAP leader Al-Khadhir Al-Tayyabi; Abdul Rahman Al-Tayyabi; Salem Al-Wahaishi; and Ali Abdo Al-Wahaishi; as well as an additional person partially named as Al-Mallahi.
Local sources told Al-Masdar Online that a US drone had launched three missiles on an area of a nearby hill, killing five. Security sources told Xinhua that those killed were mid-level commanders.
While almost all sources reported that the strike took place late on June 24th, several such as Middle East Online and 7adramout, instead reported the strike as having taken place early on the next day. The earliest tweet identified by Airwars for this event was at 01.26am local time on June 25th. Accounting for this, we have assessed that the strike took place overnight.
The incident occured during the night.
Summary
Sources (26) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (2) [ collapse]
Geolocation notes (1) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention the Al Jamajem (الجماجم) area, allegedly located in the Tayab (طياب) subdistrict, within the north of the Dhi Nhim (ذي ناعم) district. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further. The generic coordinates for Tayab district are: 14.161298, 45.471865.
United States Armed Forces Assessment:
Original strike reports
LTC Earl Brown, CENTCOM spokesman, 4th July 2019: Only one strike in Al Bayda on 24 June. No collateral damage or CIVCAS
assessed