Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Up to nine people, including as many as three civilians, among them two teenagers (16 years old and 17/18 years old), were reportedly killed in an alleged US drone strike that took place in Erq al-Shabwan, within the Wadi Obeida district of the Ma’rib governorate on August 7/8, 2013.
At dawn on August 8, security services in Ma’rib told the Security Media Center that a drone strike killed six militants, including three brothers believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Family and friends of the three brothers vociferously denied that they had any connection to the militant group. In November 2013 Foreign Policy spoke to a relative of the victims named Arfaj al-Marwani about the strike. He said his three brothers were killed as they drove home after buying presents and fireworks for the festival of Eid al Fitr. He named the dead as: Abdullah al-Marwani, 24, Hassan al-Marwani, 17, and Hussein al-Marwani, 16. ‘Everything inside the car seemed to have been flung out of the windows by the force of the blast.’ He added: ‘I found their bodies lying nearby – decapitated.’ Umm Abdullah, the mother of the three brothers who were killed, learned what happened to her boys that same night. ‘My sons were not terrorists,’ she said, ‘they only [led] a religious life, guided by the Quran. They never hurt anyone. All the tribe loved them and cried over their death.’
Based on their own interviews with Arafat Qa’id (Qayed) Salem (Salim) Arfaj, presumed to be the aforementioned Arfaj al-Marwani (brother of the children killed), Open Society Justice Initiative and Mwatana Organization for Human Rights claimed that this strike took place on August 7, 2013. From their account, the strike occurred around five kilometers away from the government complex of Ma’rib city, in an area called al-Mil, near the Air Defense Brigade. Whereas on November 4 Foreign Policy reported that Arfaj received a phone call informing him of his brothers’ deaths, in his later interview with Open Society Justice Initiative and Mwatana Organization for Human Rights Arfaj claimed that he was with his three brothers driving home to Aal Marwan – himself in one car and his brothers in the other car, which was just a few meters ahead. In addition, in this account, Hassan is 18 and not 17. He recounted: ‘The body of Abdullah was about 10 meters away from the car. [Hussain] had turned into a burned body under the car. The body of [Hassan] was headless and charred, lying about two meters to the right of the car.’ This narrative is further complicated by the Shuaib al Mosawa Blog, which alleged that ‘one car was hit in the center of Wadi [Obeiba], and the other car was hit in an area called Al-Sandah’, quoting a security official.
An anonymous local official said five of the dead were Yemeni while the sixth was of another Arab nationality. However other local security officials told CNN only four of the dead had links to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, with two being civilians. Most sources claim that six people were killed in the incident, however local security officials told CNN that this number was closer to eight, and the highest toll of nine was provided by @mm_alx111. CNN also reported that the vehicle that was destroyed was a Vitara, while a small transport vehicle survived the strikes.
US officials confirmed drones carried out the attack, telling NBC News the wave of strikes was in response to intercepted communications suggesting a terrorist attack. The officials said ‘there is no evidence any of those killed could be considered among Al Qaeda leadership’. A spokesperson for the governor of Ma’rib said he did not know if the dead were Al Qaeda members. The head of the province’s investigation department said the brothers were associated with militants. He said: ‘Of course they did, otherwise they wouldn’t have been targeted [by the drone]…They were sheltering [Al Qaeda]. And their father… is [an Al Qaeda] sympathiser.’ The Shuaib al Mosawa Blog explicitly stated that Qayed Salim al-Marwani, father of the three killed, was a leading Al Qaeda figure who was the main target but escaped.
The incident occured around dawn.
The victims were named as:
Family members (3)
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Erq al-Shabwan (عرق ال شبوان) in the Wadi Obeida District (وادي عبيدة), for which the generic coordinates are: 15.494823, 45.362653. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (53) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (2) [ collapse]
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Wreckage of the vehicle attacked on August 7, 2013, in al-Mil, Marib Governorate, killing three brothers, one of whom was 15 years-old. (Image from Mwatana)
US Forces Assessment:
Original strike reports
The U.S. launched three drone strikes Thursday against al Qaeda militant targets in Yemen, U.S. officials told NBC News.
The three strikes killed a total of 12 suspected militants, according to reports from Yemen, and raised to eight the number of attacks in less than two weeks as the Arab nation is on high alert against a suspected terrorist threat.
U.S. officials suggest the latest wave of drone airstrikes is the result of intelligence gathered in the electronic interception last week of high-level al Qaeda communications, which suggested a terrorist plot.
The officials say there is no evidence any of those killed could be considered among al Qaeda leadership.