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US raid on al-Qaeda in Yemen: What we know so far US raid on al-Qaeda in Yemen: What we know so far
(2 days later)
US special forces operatives carried out a raid in central Yemen on Sunday, targeting the house of a suspected leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). US special operations forces operatives carried out a raid in central Yemen on Saturday, targeting the house of a suspected leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
US officials have confirmed that one Navy commando died and three more service members were wounded, and say 14 al-Qaeda fighters were killed. Unconfirmed reports suggested a number of civilians were killed, including an eight-year-old girl whose father and brother were killed in drone strikes six years ago. The US military initially said an estimated 14 militants were killed and that one Navy commando also died.
But days later it acknowledged that a number of civilians were also "likely killed", after photographs of several dead children emerged on social media and the family of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric killed in a 2011 drone strike, said his young daughter had been shot dead.
Here's what we know and what's been reported.Here's what we know and what's been reported.
The US operatives targeted the house of a suspected senior AQAP leader in the mountainous Yakla region of Bayda province - the focal point of recent US drone strikes in Yemen. The US special forces members targeted the compound of a suspected senior AQAP leader in the mountainous Yakla region of Bayda province - the focal point of recent US drone strikes in Yemen.
A Pentagon spokesman said the clandestine mission - the first authorised by President Donald Trump - was an intelligence-gathering operation designed to retrieve computer hard drives. The clandestine mission - the first authorised by President Donald Trump - was intended to enable the US to "gather the information we needed to be able to map out [AQAP] better, and to prevent future foreign terrorist attacks", Pentagon spokesman Capt Jeff Davis said.
The US commandos were dropped near the target location and engaged in a firefight with suspected AQAP militants. Chief Petty Officer William Owens, a member of the elite US Navy special forces unit Seal Team 6, was killed and one other service member was wounded. After being dropped by aircraft near the compound, the US special forces members engaged in a fierce firefight with suspected AQAP militants inside, according to US officials.
AQAP said in a statement that Abdul Rauf al-Dhahab, one of its leaders, was killed in the fighting. This has not been confirmed by the US. Chief Petty Officer William Owens, a member of the elite US Navy special forces unit Seal Team 6, was killed in the battle, which is reported to have lasted about 50 minutes.
At first, US officials said only that 14 AQAP fighters were killed and denied that there were civilian casualties. But reports credited to Yemeni officials and medics on the ground said that 16 civilians were killed, including women and children. Three other US service members were injured when an Osprey MV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft made a hard landing during the operation, Capt Davis said, adding that the inoperable Osprey was subsequently destroyed in place by a US air strike.
Asked on Monday about the reports, Pentagon spokesman Capt Jeff Davis said that some of the AQAP fighters were women. AQAP said in a statement that its fighters downed a US Apache helicopter, one of four it said were used in the raid, and that a total of 16 missiles were fired at three homes.
He said: "Take reports of female casualties with a grain of salt. Not all female casualties are civilian casualties. In many cases, and certainly in this one, females can be legitimate combatants." It said one of its leaders, Abdul Rauf al-Dhahab, was killed, along with about 30 "villagers", including women and children whom it did not identify.
Other reports said that an eight-year-old girl, Nawar al-Awlaki, was killed. Her grandfather, who was not at the scene, said in interviews with NBC and Reuters news agency that she was shot dead by US forces. Her uncle also posted to Facebook to say she had died. Medics at the scene told Reuters news agency that about 30 people were killed, including 10 women and children, while a Yemeni official told the New York Times that at least eight women and seven children aged between three and 13 years old had died.
Images circulated on social media and by local media outlets purported to show her body. Among the reportedly children killed was Nawar al-Awlaki, the eight-year-old daughter of the AQAP ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki, according to her grandfather.
Nawar is the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a suspected senior al-Qaeda leader killed by a US drone strike in 2011. Her 16-year-old brother, Abdulrahman, was killed by another US drone strike two weeks after the death of their father. Nasser al-Awlaki told NBC News that Nawar, also known as Nora, had been visiting her mother when the raid took place.
Asked about the boy's death at the time, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary under Barack Obama, said: "Maybe he should've had a more responsible father." "They were sitting in the house, and a bullet struck her in her neck at [02:30]. Other children in the same house were killed," the former agriculture minister said, adding that Nawar died two hours after being shot.
There has been no official confirmation of Nawar's death from Yemeni or US officials. "[The US special forces] entered another house and killed everybody in it, including all the women. They burned the house. There is an assumption there was a woman [in the house] from Saudi Arabia who was with al-Qaeda. All we know is that she was a children's teacher."
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told journalists on Tuesday that he could not give them any more information about the raid. Images circulated on social media and by local media outlets purported to show her body, along those of other children allegedly killed.
Capt Davis said the raid had been planned months ago by the Obama administration but that the plans were handed over to the Trump administration, which authorised it as its first combat action. Yemen's Foreign Minister, Abdul Malik al-Mekhlafi, also appeared to dispute the US military's account, writing on Twitter on Sunday: "The extrajudicial killings and killing civilians are condemned acts that support terrorism."
A US V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft crashed at the site as it attempted to evacuate the US troops, injuring two members of the crew. On Monday, Capt Davis told reporters that the Pentagon was "assessing" the claims of civilian casualties, but said to "take reports of female casualties with a grain of salt".
The Osprey was too badly damaged to fly and was destroyed by the soldiers, who flew out on another aircraft. "There were a lot of female combatants who were part of this," he added. "We saw during this operation as it was taking place that female fighters ran to pre-established positions as though they'd been trained to be ready and trained to be combatants."
On Wednesday, the US's military Central Command issued a statement saying an investigations team had "concluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely killed in the midst of a firefight" during the raid.
It acknowledged that the casualties "may include children", but did not specify whether Nawar was among them.
"The known possible civilian casualties appear to have been potentially caught up in aerial gunfire that was called in to assist US forces in contact against a determined enemy that included armed women firing from prepared fighting positions, and US special operations members receiving fire from all sides to include houses and other buildings."
Analysts were "carefully assessing whether additional non-combatant civilians that were not visible to the assault force at the time were mixed in with combatants", the statement added.
Nawar al-Awlaki's 16-year-old brother, Abdulrahman, was killed in a US drone strike two weeks after the death of their father in September 2011.
Asked about the boy's death at the time, then White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "Maybe he should've had a more responsible father."
Capt Davis said Saturday's raid had been planned months ago by the Obama administration but that the plans had been handed over to the Trump administration.