Geolocation
Airwars assessment
One local language social media source, @GawadSalah, claimed, on September 15th 2019, that six Emiratis were killed in an alleged AQAP camp in Shabwa by a US drone strike.
The source seemed to refer to six Emirati soldiers reported, on September 14th 2019, to have been killed in a road “collision” in southern Yemen. Other reports suggested that the six were killed in an armed clash with separatists, or even that they died in Libya. No other known sources assigned responsibility for the deaths to a US drone strike.
On October 4th 2019, a US Central Command spokesperson told New America that no strikes had been conducted in Yemen since June 24th 2019. It is, however, possible that an undeclared strike was conducted by the CIA, or was part of a clandestine US military action.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Summary
Sources (4) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (1) [ collapse]
Geolocation notes (1) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention the governorate of Shabwa (شبوة), for which the generic coordinates are: 14.695997, 46.957239. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
US Forces Assessment:
Original strike reports
On October 4, 2019, United States Central Command (CENTCOM) replied to an email inquiry from New America confirming that “the last strike conducted by CENTCOM in Yemen was 24 June.” Per that statement, there were no CENTCOM strikes in Yemen in September 2019.
The lack of strikes in September makes it more than three months since the last U.S. military counterterrorism strike in Yemen, according to New America’s research. However, it is possible that the United States has conducted covert non-military strikes, and in recent years there have been a small number of strikes attributed by media reports to the United States that CENTCOM has denied conducting