In December 2009, the United States launched a series of missile strikes against targets associated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. On 17 December, cruise missiles were launched on the village of al-Majalah and in Arhab, near the capital of Sanaa. On 24 December, another cruise missile targeted Rafd, a remote village in Shabwah Governorate. The attacks were the first military operations launched by the U.S. in Yemen since 2002 as well as the first by President Barack Obama's administration, and marked the start of a prolonged American military campaign against AQAP.[1]
Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) had proposed the attacks a day before they took place under Operation Copper Dune. The main target was Mohammed Saleh al-Kazemi, an AQAP commander who was believed to be residing at a militant training camp in al-Majalah and was planning an imminent attack on the U.S. embassy in Sanaa. U.S. Navy warships under the command of JSOC fired Tomahawk missiles at the village in the morning, destroying the training camp but also hitting nearby residential areas, where the missile's cluster munitions wreaked havoc on the huts of local villagers. In Arhab, a cruise missile struck a house believed to be containing AQAP leader Qasim al-Raymi before Yemeni soldiers raided the area. Five militants were killed but Raymi had escaped.
A week later, another missile attack struck a house in Rafd, where a meeting was thought to have been occurring between several prominent AQAP figures, including Anwar al-Awlaki, who was accused of being involved in the Fort Hood shooting a month prior. Awlaki stated days later in an interview that no meeting had took place and all AQAP leaders had survived; the only casualties of the attack were five low-level recruits. The next day, an attempted suicide bombing on an American airliner took place, which was claimed by AQAP as revenge for the strikes.
The Yemeni government took responsibility for the attacks initially. Despite claims of no civilians casualties at first, the Yemeni parliament released an investigative commission into the al-Majalah attack in February 2010 which stated that 55 people had been killed, them being 14 militants including Kazemi, and 41 civilians, including nine women and 21 children. Amnesty International released photographs of U.S.-made bombs and missile components in June, accusing the U.S. of having conducted the bombings. Several cables disclosed by Wikileaks revealed of a joint agreement through which Yemen would take the blame for U.S. counterterrorism operations.
In 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted a drone strike which killed al-Qaeda's head in Yemen, Abu Ali al-Harithi. It was the first drone strike conducted against al-Qaeda outside of Afghanistan: the Yemeni government urged the US to keep the operation a secret. When an American official leaked it regardless, it created significant damage in the counterterrorism partnership between the countries, with Yemen subsequently banning drones over its airspace. The killing of Harithi, along with crackdowns by local security forces, led to al-Qaeda being perceived as effectively neutralized in Yemen by 2004.[2][3]
As the US became occupied with the Iraq war, it drew its attention away from counterterrorism in Yemen and cut foreign aid in many departments, leading to more poverty and a greater appeal in militancy. Al-Qaeda took the opportunity to revive itself, capitalizing off of a prison escape in 2006 which freed several militants, some of whom would become its central leaders. The al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen would proceed to launch numerous high-profile attacks over the next years, culminating in an assault on the US embassy in Sanaa in September 2008.[3][4]
In January 2009, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was announced as a merger between the groups in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It proceeded to perpetrate numerous attacks in the region, notably a bombing targeting a group of South Korean tourists in March and an assassination attempt on Saudi prince Muhammad bin Nayef in August.[4] American concern with AQAP was further exacerbated by the presence of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric who was suspected of influencing Maj. Nidal Hasan to conduct a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009, during which he killed 13 US Army soldiers. The US believed Awlaki to be a regional commander in AQAP, but Yemeni officials viewed him more so as having an ideological role within the group.[5]
Obama administration policy
US President Barack Obama, whose inauguration coincided with the formation of AQAP, immediately viewed the group as an emerging threat and began considering military action against it in Yemen. Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan became Obama's chief negotiator with Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh in regards to counterterrorism, with discussions initially focusing on military action in Yemen and training of local security forces.[6] Obama's doctrine on fighting AQAP was led by Central Command head David Petraeus, who was mainly occupied with "small wars" in the war on terror, and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) commander William McRaven, whose unit was the "lead force for covert action inside Yemen."[7]
Saleh proved to be more cooperative with the US over time: In May, CIA deputy director Steven Kappes noted that Saleh viewed AQAP as the primary threat to Yemen rather than other local factions during their meeting. In a July meeting with Petraeus, Saleh assured him that he would directly act against the group. A subsequent raid by Yemeni special forces the next month targeting an AQAP cell was a failure, but helped the US in portraying all action against AQAP as done by the Yemeni government.[8] By the time that Brennan had met with him again in September, Saleh said that he would grant the US authority to conduct unilateral counterterrorism operations in Yemen, with his only requirement being that he was to escape the blame for terrorist attacks by AQAP in response.[9] It was after this that the US started pursuing military action in Yemen.[10]
Petraeus approved a plan to expand American military presence in Yemen in April 2009, involving both the training of Yemeni forces and infrastructure for independent military action.[11] The latter half of 2009 saw an uptick in analysts and agents from the CIA as well as the military arriving at the Sanaa embassy to expand intelligence-gathering on AQAP. However, this also led to further difficulties and risks for agents operating in the country and attempting to infiltrate AQAP, resulting in US agencies relying more-so on Yemeni human intelligence, which was viewed as more inconsistent. Signals intelligence was therefore prioritized, with eavesdropping by the local Special Collection Service station playing a large role.[12]
Prelude
By early December 2009, the intelligence community in Yemen had acquired evidence that AQAP was in the final stages of preparing terrorist attacks on undetermined local Western targets.[13] According to National Counterterrorism Center head Michael Leiter, the US "thought it was going to be something in Yemen, (…) So we surged resources for targeting in Yemen (…) to disrupt that ‘something,’ even though we didn’t know what it was."[14]
A months-long JSOC search determined that near the remote Abyan village of al-Majalah, where locals had recently seen surveillance aircraft passing by,[15] AQAP commander Saleh Mohammed Ali al-Anbouri (also known as Mohammed al-Kazemi)[16] was in charge of a training camp for suicide bombers who would likely attack the local US embassy.[17] A former Afghan Arab, Kazemi was arrested in 2005 by local authorities on charges related to terrorism, and was released in 2007. Afterwards, he and his family moved to al-Majalah and pledged to renounce jihadism.[18] American intelligence reports contradict this, instead claiming that Kazemi was an operational commander within AQAP, was previously involved in a 2007 car bombing in Marib which killed several tourists, and was nearly finished planning the embassy attack.[19] With strong support from Petraeus albeit caution from national security advisor James Jones, who was skeptical of the quality of US intelligence in the region, President Obama approved military action.[20]
On December 16, 2009, McRaven headed a military video conference which proposed a series of three targeted killings in Yemen which were to be conducted within 24 hours.[21] Under a top-secret special access program[22] with the name "Operation Copper Dune", JSOC would launch strikes against three targets labeled code names based off various cities in Ohio. The primary target, Kazemi, was called Objective "Akron", and had been pinpointed at the training camp near al-Majalah, while Objectives "Toledo" and "Cleveland" were additionally located and open for attacking.[23] Petraeus hastily included Cleveland as a target based off newfound intelligence on their location.[14]State Department and Department of Defence legal advisor's Harold Koh and Jeh Johnson were given 45 minutes in advance to review the intel on the targets and approve them in regards to legal considerations.[24]
During the meeting, which involved around 75 security officials and lawyers, Johnson told deputy national security advisor Tom Donilon that he approved the strikes on Akron and Toledo, but advised against Cleveland due to a higher likelihood of civilian casualties.[25][14] The meeting also discussed the method of attack for the operation: capturing the targets was not an option. It concluded that JSOC would utilize a US Navy submarine off the coast of Yemen armed with cruise missiles for the strikes.[24] Both Koh and Johnson believed they were given too little time to make an informed decision on the strikes, and were pressured by the military into approving them with "their ability to create an atmosphere of do-or-die urgency."[24][26] Along with pressure to act hastily, the nearest US base in the region, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, only permitted the military to launch surveillance drones from its territory, while most Predator and Reaper drones were occupied in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[27][28] Regardless, soon after the meeting concluded JSOC launched aerial surveillance to monitor the targets. Petraeus viewed live video feed from the locations at CENTCOM headquarters,[27] while Johnson viewed them from a command center at the Pentagon's "E" ring.[25]
Strikes
BGM-109 Tomahawk
Al-Majalah
The strike on al-Majalah was described by a military official as a "JSOC operation with borrowed Navy subs, borrowed Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy surveillance aircraft and close coordination with CIA and DIA on the ground in Yemen. Counting the crew of the sub we’re talking 350–400 [people] in the loop."[29] Johnson recalled viewing live surveillance footage of militants running drills at the targeted training facility.[25] Several other American officials who viewed the surveillance corroborated the claim.[30]
At 6:00 a.m. local time on December 17, as many as five BGM-109D Tomahawk missiles were launched by a US submarine off the coast of Yemen at al-Majalah, hitting a rugged area on the edge of the village.[31] US surveillance captured the destruction of the training camp along with the deaths of the previously seen militants.[25] However, in addition to the camp, the bombings also encompassed two nearby clusters of civilian huts meters away, totaling 30 homes occupied by sleeping Bedouins.[32][33][34] US officials questioned by Dexter Filkins of The New Yorker exclusively recalled seeing a training camp through the surveillance footage. He concluded that "the cameras missed the women and children."[30]
According to a Yemeni official, JSOC was supposed to strike a single encampment belonging to the militants but had targeted all encampments in the area, possibly due to faulty intelligence from Yemen.[35] The specific Tomahawk model used in the attack is intentionally designed for dispersing numerous cluster munitions over a wide region. Accounting for the 166 BLU-97A/B Combined Effects cluster bombs which are loaded in one missile, as many as 830 bomblets were estimated to have struck al-Majalah in a 1.5 kilometer radius.[36] Additionally, the bomblets carried nearly 200 pieces of metal shrapnel and spray out burning zirconium, which disperses an incendiary.[37] Of the 30 huts in the vicinity of the attack, 12 were completely destroyed while the rest were severely burned.[38][37]
A Yemeni government-endorsed inquiry determined that 55 people had died in the al-Majalah strike.[30] The inquiry reported that local authorities believed 14 suspected militants were killed, though the number was unverifiable as the only militant who was definitively identified was Kazemi.[37] His death was confirmed by AQAP in a video released in May 2010.[39] Six newcomers to the village who were helping Kazemi dig a well twenty days prior were killed, their bodies being extracted from the site along with some other injured men by a group of masked gunmen shortly after the strike took place.[40][15]
The majority of people killed in al-Majalah were civilians. The report listed a total 41 individuals killed in the strike from two extended families; 14 from the Haydara family and 27 from the Anbouri family.[15] Of those killed, nine were women, five of whom were pregnant, while 21 were children.[41] Kazemi's wife and four children were among them.[15] A leaked US cable described the civilians as "largely nomadic, Bedouin families who lived in tents near the AQAP training camp."[42] The villagers, described as one of the poorest tribes in the region,[43] were paid by the militants to provide shelter, food and laundry to the camp, but were likely not affiliated with AQAP otherwise.[44] One tribesman said that the locals had agreed to host the militants at their camp because they promised to dig them a well.[45] Survivors interviewed by Human Rights Watch were not aware of Kazemi's involvement in militant activities or the presence of a training camp.[46] Many local livestock were put out by the locals to graze at the time and were caught in the blast,[47] with up to 1,500 goats, sheeps, cows and donkeys possibly dying.[44]
Arhab
Simultaneously with the al-Majalah strike, JSOC launched a separate missile attack on an AQAP safehouse in Arhab district on December 17. Shortly afterwards, ground forces from Yemen's Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU), in coordination with JSOC's Intelligence Support Activity, raided the premises. The main target of the operation was AQAP commander Qasim al-Raymi.[22] Officials said that the raid had disrupted an AQAP cell which was involved in a plot to bomb the British Embassy along with numerous other Western targets in Sanaa.[48]
Three would-be suicide bombers were killed, including former Guantanamo Bay detainee Hani Abdo Shaalan.[34][49] Initial reports claimed the militants had died in a shootout with the CTU,[34] though an AQAP obituary posted in 2011 said Shaalan was struck and killed by a US missile.[50] Within the bombed-out compound, CTU forces captured another militant still wearing their suicide vest.[49] Raymi escaped the raid alongside veteran jihadist Hizam Mujali, though his brother Arif Mujali was captured.[34][51] The Yemeni Embassy in Washington D.C. uploaded a seven-minute YouTube video of CTU forces conducting the raid.[52]
Rafd
Nearly a week after the first two strikes, another video conference was held to determine the legality of a third missile strike on a compound in Shabwah Governorate. Present in the meeting was the Pentagon's deputy general counsel, Robert Taylor, as well as Joint Chiefs of Staff general counsel James W. Crawford III.[14] US and Yemeni intelligence believed that the target building was the site of a meeting between AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi and his deputy Said Ali al-Shihri.[53] Wuhayshi and Shihri were possibly tracked after travelling to Abyan to mourn the death of Kazemi.[34] Among other sources, the interrogated would-be suicide bomber captured by the CTU during the Arhab raid also contributed towards the intelligence preceding the strike.[54]
Several sources have reported that Awlaki was also a target in the strike, though according to journalist Charlie Savage, none of the numerous officials involved in the operation that he interviewed recalled him being so. Savage claimed that the notion of Awlaki being a target was a misunderstanding of the Obama administration's policy of killing him at the time. The targets were still Wuhayshi and Shihri, but with there being a reasonable chance that Awlaki could have also been present during the meeting, US officials deemed it acceptable to launch a strike on the former two regardless and kill Awlaki, as he would be classified as an enemy combatant.[55]
On 24 December, a pre-dawn US Navy missile attack struck a stone house on a hillside in Rafd, a small remote village in Shabwah.[4] The strike killed five low-level recruits who were sleeping in the compound,[4] all identified as relatives from the Awlaki tribe.[34][5] The group had given a public speech at a rally in al-Majalah days before the strike, possibly suggesting that they were tracked by the US prior to their killing.[56] However, no high-ranking AQAP leaders were killed, with Awlaki himself denying reports of his death in a phone interview with a local journalist, citing that he did not attend the purported meeting and was two or three kilometers apart from the house which was bombed.[57][58] Residents noted "yellow-and-green military-style spotter balloons" surveilling the area three days before the strike, potentially tipping off the AQAP leaders that their meeting was compromised.[5] According to Morten Storm, an undercover Danish spy who infiltrated AQAP, Awlaki sent him a text message which wrote "Phew. Maaaaaan—that was close," after the bombing.[55][59]
Aftermath
Survivors and other locals near al-Majalah washed the intact bodies of those killed and prepared them for burial.[60] A row of small gravestones were established along a highway leading to the village.[45] Some of the victims from the two families were buried in a mass grave as their remains were torn apart and indistinguishable from each other.[15] Animals remains were also buried alongside the victims for this reason.[44] Human Rights Watch reported that local authorities "failed to provide even the most basic rescue assistance such as transporting the wounded to hospitals, helping identify the dead and wounded, or securing the area."[61]
The cluster bomblets in al-Majalah which did not explode during the strike were burrowed within the terrain, forming an effective minefield of unexploded ordnance.[60] At least four people were recorded to have died through the handing of the bomblets. Two people were killed at al-Majalah during a December 21 rally, while one was killed later in the day as they attempted to remove a bomblet which they had collected at the site from their car. On January 24, 2012, a child who brought a bomblet to his home accidentally detonated it while throwing it away, injuring him and his brother and killing his father. The Yemeni government had offered to clear al-Majalah of remaining explosives but was rejected by the locals, who instead wanted assistance from an international organization out of fear that authorities would not sufficiently clear the area and would use the opportunity as a coverup.[62] By 2013, al-Majalah was still filled with unexploded bomblets, making the area uninhabitable.[33]
A US cable reported that the Yemeni government had originally allocated approximately $100,000 to the Governor of Abyan to split between the families of the al-Majalah victims.[63] The government later offered to increase the money to 5.5 million rials, equaling around $25,000 per civilian killed, and added 10 Toyota Hiluxes as a down payment, but the victims families instead wanted 10 billion rials, equalling to $51,000, as well a pledge for the government to hold the perpetrators of the attack responsible. The government refused to negotiate with the victims. Some families began accepting government compensation plans for property damage by mid-2013. A total of 37 million rials (around $170,000) was divided between 10 families, averaging $17,000 each. The sum had only covered the houses destroyed in the strike and not the killed civilians, nor other property such as livestock which were killed.[64][33] On 22 October 2013, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington D.C. reported that all surviving families of the attack were compensated.[65]
Response
A House of Representatives-commissioned inquiry into the al-Majalah bombing, officially titled the Republic of Yemen, Special Parliamentarian Investigating Committee Report On Security Events In the Province of Abyan,[66] was opened days after the attack. Headed by Himyar Abdullah al-Ahmar, a delegation of 15 members of parliament were sent to the village to survey al-Majalah, interview locals and gather eyewitness accounts. The investigation was complete and published on February 7, 2010, confirming the militant and civilian death toll along with identifying every civilian killed.[15] Investigators found the entire area to be burnt and destroyed upon their arrival as well as multiple unexploded bomblets.[37] The report upheld that Kazemi was an AQAP commander, and had transferred money to at least 20 Saudi, Emirati and Pakistani militants in Yemen. Interviews with various locals determined that he had been moving freely in the region and in places with multiple security checkpoints, making it possible for him to have been captured or eliminated in an alternative situation.[67] The Yemeni parliament approved the commission's findings in March 2010, and agreed that a judicial investigation be opened into the bombing to uphold those responsible. It also issued an official apology to the victims of the attack, labeling it a mistake and promising financial compensation.[15]
A US cable reported that the Yemeni government had originally allocated approximately $100,000 to the Governor of Abyan to split between the families of the al-Majalah victims.[63] The government later offered to increase the money to 5.5 million rials, equaling around $25,000 per civilian killed, and added 10 Toyota Hiluxes as a down payment, but the victims families instead wanted 10 billion rials, equalling to $51,000, as well a pledge for the government to hold the perpetrators of the attack responsible. The government refused to negotiate with the victims. Some families began accepting government compensation plans for property damage by mid-2013. A total of 37 million rials (around $170,000) was divided between 10 families, averaging $17,000 each. The sum had only covered the houses destroyed in the strike and not the killed civilians, nor other property such as livestock which were killed.[64][33] On October 22, 2013, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington D.C. reported that all surviving families of the attack were compensated.[65]
Reactions
Saleh bin Fareed, a politician and leader of the Awlaki tribe, arrived at al-Majalah shortly after the bombing and helped collect and bury the remains of the victims. Fareed was angered by Western media's depiction of the strike, which reported a successful attack on an AQAP camp by Yemeni forces and not a civilian massacre perpetrated by the US, which he had deduced after finding labeled American missile parts at the scene. Seeking to change public perception, on December 20 he organized a gathering of close to 150 tribal leaders from across the country for a rally at al-Majalah the next day in order to "show all media that what our government says is not true. The Majalah disaster was done by the Americans. And there was not al-Qaeda whatsoever." As they were organizing the rally, Fareed was approached by a group of AQAP militants who requested that they attend and give a speech. Fareed threatened to kill them if they did, and pledged that they could shave his beard if they survived three days after the fact.[68]
The rally was held on December 21 with tens of thousands of people in attendance, along with many supporters of the separatist Southern Movement.[69] Despite Fareed's threat, the group of militants arrived regardless and gave a speech condemning the US and the Yemeni government and vowing revenge for the deaths of civilians.[56] Fareed attempted to reach them, but they had left by the time that he arrived. A video of the speech was broadcast by Al Jazeera and distributed by international news outlets resulting in the rally, which was meant to show that the victims of the attack were not militants, being seen as a pro-AQAP gathering.[70][56]
Responsibility
Both the Yemeni and US governments agreed to portray the strikes as Yemen's own doing.[71] Due to strong anti-American sentiment within the Yemeni public, admitting that the US had militarily intervened in their own country would likely have harmed the Saleh administration's reputation locally.[72]
For the strikes on December 17, Yemeni officials claimed that the military had carried out a series of simultaneous raids and airstrikes which killed 34 militants and arrested 17.[73]MiG-29 fighter jets were ordered to fly over al-Majalah shortly after the US strike to depict a Yemeni Air Force operation.[44] The officials reports also claimed that Obama had called Saleh on the day of the strikes to congratulate him on the successful operations.[73] Later in January, state-ran Saba News Agency published an in-depth report of the operations, acknowledging civilian deaths as unavoidable and claiming that the US cluster munitions at the sites were mines planted by AQAP, allowing the government to ward off independent investigators.[74]
Despite the cover-up, by December 18 several anonymous American officials had spoken to news agencies contradicting the official story. The New York Times wrote that US firepower was used during the operations. ABC News was the first to report that the operations were conducted directly by the US under the orders of Obama.[75] The Yemeni public widely assumed the strikes were conducted by the US, and were angered by the civilian casualties.[63]
On 30 September 2010, during an interview with pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi admitted for the first time that the US had conducted the strikes. According to him, the strikes had ceased in December as the "Yemeni government ascertained they weren't achieving results."[76]
Investigations
Abdulelah Haider Shaye, a local independent journalist, travelled to al-Majalah shorty after the strike and took photographs of missile parts and bombs, some of which had the labels "Made in the United States" written on them. He distributed the photographs to various media outlets and human rights organizations.[22]
Shaye's work was corroborated and utilized by Amnesty International,[77][78] which released a report on June 7, 2010 containing several photos of the remnants of US bombs and bomb parts in al-Majalah. The photos, which were obtained by the group earlier in March, showed various damaged components of a BGM-109D Tomahawk as well as an unexploded BLU-97A/B submunition traced to the Kansas Army Ammunition Plant. The report noted that the specific type of missile used was only known to be in the US military's arsenal and not Yemen's.[37][79] The US government ignored Amnesty International's inquiry regarding its role in the attacks, though the Pentagon published a statement the day after the release of the report directing responsibility to the Yemeni government.[80]
On November 28, 2010, Wikileaks began distributing and publishing collections of classified US government cables. Among them were several cables relating to the 2009 Yemen attacks, which up until then was still unacknowledged by the US.[81] A cable dated to December 21, 2009, between the first and second round of strikes, recorded US ambassador Stephen Seche's concern with the Yemeni government's perceived indifference to reports of high civilian death tolls for the strikes and leaks of American involvement. Interior Minister Rashad al-Alimi told him that "any evidence of greater U.S. involvement such as fragments of U.S. munitions found at the sites—could be explained away as equipment purchased from the U.S."[54] The Saleh administration voiced its eagerness to maintain the disinformation campaign so that US operations could continue to take place.[82]
Another cable described a meeting in Sanaa between Saleh, Alimi and Petraeus on January 2, 2010. Petraeus praised the attacks and announced that US aid for Yemen would increase to $150 million during the year, which was followed by Saleh assuring him that "we'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours". Alimi proceeded to joke that he had lied to parliament in telling it that the strikes were conducted by the Yemeni military with US-supplied weapons.[83] Saleh rebuffed a request by Petraeus for American ground forces to be deployed in the country, but agreed with a proposition that the US would thereon use fixed-wing aircraft and precision-guided munitions for strikes against AQAP.[82] While discussing the strikes themselves, Saleh lamented mistakes which led to civilian deaths in the al-Majalah attack, to which Petraeus responded by denying significant casualties and claiming that the only civilians who died were Kazemi's wife and two children. The cable wrote that Saleh proceeded to engage in a "lengthy and confusing aside" with other Yemeni officials at the meeting regarding the death count, commenting that "Saleh’s conversation on the civilian casualties suggests he has not been well briefed by his advisors on the strike in Abyan." Several investigations determining the civilian death toll of the strike revealed that "Saleh was right and Petraeus was shockingly misinformed."[83]
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