Videos U.S. Seized in Yemen Raid Appear to Show Nothing New

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/world/middleeast/yemen-raid-centcom-videos.html

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WASHINGTON — The military’s Central Command on Friday released a clip from videos seized in this week’s commando raid in Yemen, which American officials called “do it yourself” lessons for “aspiring bomb makers” seeking to attack the West.

But hours later, Defense Department officials acknowledged that the videos appeared to be 10 years old, similar to training messages by Al Qaeda that were distributed on the internet in 2007. The discovery prompted Central Command to cancel a planned news conference trumpeting the intelligence gathered in the Yemen raid.

Pentagon officials still insisted that the video’s vintage did not detract from the importance of the intelligence gathered during the raid on Sunday, during which a member of the Navy SEALs and 14 militants were killed. Pentagon officials say they now believe that a number of civilians, including children, were also killed in the raid, which was the first one ordered by President Trump since he took the oath of office.

“It does not matter when the video was made,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. “The fact that they had it is illustrative of who they were and what they were doing.”

The White House has defended the Special Operations raid in Yemen as well planned and executed, despite the death of Chief Petty Officer William Owens, the first military death on the new commander in chief’s watch.

White House officials have said the information recovered in the risky attack, including laptop computers and cellphones, could help thwart future terrorist attacks. But the mission suffered from a number of problems.

A Yemeni tribal sheikh said that Qaeda fighters were tipped off to the troops’ stealthy advance through the village, perhaps by the noise made by American drones that the tribal leader said were flying lower and louder than usual.