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December 2009 United States attacks in Yemen

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Operation Copper Dune
Part of the al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen
December 2009 United States attacks in Yemen is located in Yemen
Al-Majalah
Al-Majalah
Arhab
Arhab
Rafd
Rafd
Locations of attacks within Yemen
Location
Al-Majalah, Arhab and Rafd, Yemen
Planned by United States
Commanded byBarack Obama
William H. McRaven
Target
Date17–24 December 2009 (2009-12-17 – 2009-12-24) (1 week)
Executed by
Outcome
  • High-ranking AQAP leaders survive
  • Numerous civilians killed
CasualtiesAl-Majalah: 59 killed (14 militants, 41 civilians and 4 by unexploded ordnance)
Arhab: 4 militants killed
Rafd: 5 militants killed

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.

Background

[edit]

Prior to the strikes, the only military operation conducted by the U.S. in Yemen was in 2002, when a CIA-executed drone strike killed the leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen (AQY).[2][3] From thereon, AQY experienced a significant decline in activity, prompting American counterterrorism focus to shift elsewhere. However, the group experienced a revival off a prison escape in 2006 which freed many militants who would become its central leaders. After numerous high-profile attacks (including one on the American embassy in Sanaa in 2008), its resurgence culminated in the formation of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in January 2009 as a merger of Yemen and Saudi Arabia's local al-Qaeda branches. Throughout the year, AQAP perpetrated numerous terrorist attacks in the region, most notably a bombing against 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 grew in mid-2009 as it saw more al-Qaeda members and leaders traveling from the group's traditional base in Afghanistan and Pakistan towards areas in Yemen.[5][6] It was further exacerbated by the presence of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric who was suspected of influencing Maj. Nidal Hasan to commit a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas on 5 November 2009, during which he killed 13 U.S. Army soldiers. The U.S. believed Awlaki to be a regional commander in AQAP, but Yemeni officials viewed him more so as having an ideological role within the group.[2] As a result, U.S. military aid for Yemen grew considerably during the year as it simultaneously provided counter-terrorism training for Yemeni security forces.[7]

Prelude

[edit]

According to a leaked diplomatic cable, in September 2009 Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh held a meeting with American deputy national security adviser John Brennan, during which he gave the U.S. permission to pursue unilateral counterterrorism operations unmonitored by Yemen.[8] In return, Saleh required that, if any Western targets were the victims of terrorist attacks as a result, he would not be held responsible.[9]

On 16 December 2009, a day before the first strikes took place, JSOC commander William H. McRaven was part of a video meeting with 75 U.S. national security officials when he advocated for three targeted killings in Yemen under Operation Copper Dune, codenamed objectives Akron, Toledo and Cleveland, which were to be conducted within 24 hours and required approval for legal considerations. The intelligence committees for the House of Representative and the Senate were not required to be informed as the military was conducting the strikes under a special access program. The officials at the meeting, who included legal advisors for the State Department and Department of Defense, were given 45 minutes from their initial brief of the operation to decide if they were to be conducted. The latter's advisor, Jeh Johnson, believed that he was pressured by JSOC into the targeted killing approach and wasn't given enough time to decide, but approved of the attacks anyways. After debating the method of attack, the meeting settled on a JSOC-led cruise missile strike. Upon approval from President Barack Obama, JSOC began aerial surveillance on the targeted areas by the next day.[10][11]

The primary target of the strikes was Akron, the codename for Mohammed Saleh al-Kazemi, AQAP's deputy-commander in Abyan who was among JSOC's most wanted militants. JSOC intelligence had tracked Kazemi to a supposed training camp in or near al-Majalah, and believed that Kazemi, who was thought to be involved in the 2007 Marib bombing, was nearly finished planning an attack on the American embassy in Sanaa.[12][11] Kazemi and his family had settled with his native tribe in al-Majalah years prior to the bombings, after he was released from prison in 2005.[13][12]

Strikes

[edit]
BGM-109 Tomahawk
BLU-97 cluster munition

17 December

[edit]

At 06:00 local time on 17 December, as many as five BGM-109D Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched by JSOC-led submarines off the coast of Yemen at al-Majalah, a remote hamlet in al-Mahfad district of Abyan Governorate, lying at a valley near the hill of a mountain range.[12][10] The hamlet was closeby to a major road and an army base according to a resident.[14]

The operation 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."[10] American forces and officials were directly monitoring al-Majalah with aerial surveillance relaying to the Pentagon. According to the viewers, they had a clear look of AQAP militants running drills at a training camp.[3][10][11] Near the training camp was also a civilian area at the fringe of the village, where local Bedouins from two extended families, the Haydara and the Anbouri families,[13] tended to livestock and lived in wooden and straw huts.[12] Weeks prior to the operation, locals noticed that Kazemi had brought a group of six unknown men to work on digging a well about a kilometer away from where the bombings occurred.[12][10]

The missiles struck the training camp, where the militants were "vaporized" as described by Johnson,[10] but also hit two nearby clusters of civilian huts meters away, totaling 30 homes.[15][16][12] Dexter Filkins of The New Yorker wrote that U.S. aerial surveillance must have "missed the women and children."[17] The specific Tomahawk model used in the attack was intentionally inaccurate and 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, Human Rights Watch estimated that as many as 830 bomblets had struck al-Majalah in a 1.5 kilometer radius.[12] Additionally, the bomblets carry nearly 200 pieces of metal shrapnel and spray out burning zirconium, which disperses an incendiary affect.[18] Of the 30 huts in the vicinity of the attack, 12 of them were completely destroyed while the rest were severely burned.[12][18]

Simultaneously with the al-Majalah attack, JSOC launched another missile strike in Arhab district of Sanaa Governorate. The target of the bombing was a home being used as an AQAP living space, which allegedly contained AQAP military commander Qasim al-Raymi.[10] Yemeni officials claimed that the target was an AQAP cell which was actively plotting a series of suicide bombings against schools as well as Yemeni national interests.[19] Another official later said that the cell was involved in a plot to bomb the British Embassy along with numerous other Western targets in Sanaa.[20] Shorty after the missile strike, ground forces from Yemen's US-backed Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU), with support from JSOC intelligence, raided the premises.[10] Raymi escaped along with veteran jihadist Hizam Mujali, though his brother Arif Mujali was captured.[21][22] Four militants in total were arrested by Yemeni forces in Arhab, while raids in the capital city of Sanaa netted 13 more militants.[23]

24 December

[edit]

On 24 December, a pre-dawn cruise missile attack struck a stone house on a hillside in Rafd, a small remote village in Shabwah Governorate. Five militants were killed in the compound, their remains scattered throughout the area. Found within the debris were the remains of ordnance belonging to the U.S. Navy.[4]

JSOC received "actionable intelligence" extracted by the CTU while interrogating a militant captured during the Arhab raid which partly led to Obama approving the strike on Rafd. The target of the strike was a meeting between Anwar al-Awlaki, AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi and his deputy Said Ali al-Shihri.[10] After visiting Abyan to mourn the death of Kazemi, Wuhayshi and Shihri were possibly tracked by U.S. drones to Rafd.[16] 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.[2]

Victims

[edit]

An inquiry by the Yemeni government determined that the total amount of casualties from the al-Majalah attack was 55 people.[17] 14 suspected AQAP militants were killed, but the only one who was definitively identified was Kazemi.[12][18] His death was confirmed by AQAP in May 2010.[24] The six unknown individuals helping Kazemi dig the well were also killed, with their bodies being extracted from the site along with some injured men by a group of armed men in masks shortly after the attack.[12][13]

The majority of those killed in al-Majalah were civilians with 41 people dying; 14 from the Haydara family and 27 from the Anbouri family.[13] Of the civilians, nine of them were women, five of whom were pregnant, and 21 were children.[12] Kazemi's wife and four children were also among those killed.[13] An additional three people were killed and nine injured by unexploded ordnance on 21 December at a rally, while a child who brought a bomb fragment to his home on 24 January 2012 nad accidentally detonated it, injuring himself and two siblings and killing his father, raised the death toll to 59.[12]

A Yemeni official and a human rights activist confirmed that four would-be AQAP suicide bombers were killed in the Arhab operation, including former Guantanamo Bay detainee Hani Abdo Shaalan.[23][20]

No high-ranking AQAP leaders were killed in the Rafd strike, with Awlaki himself denying the reports 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.[25][26] Only five low-level recruits were killed as they were sleeping,[4] identified as Mohammed Saleh al-Awlaki and four other relatives from the Awlaki tribe.[16][2]

Aftermath

[edit]

Tribal leader and politician Saleh bin Fareed, who had helped with burying the remains of the victims shortly after the al-Majalah attack, organized a tribal gathering to show solidarity with the victims. Fareed's decision was in reaction to Western media coverage largely centering around the AQAP training camp targeted rather than the killed civilians, and not acknowledging that the U.S. had conducted it, which he had realized after viewing the remnants of a U.S. bomb in the area. The rally was held on 21 December; an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 people were present according to him, along with about 150 tribal sheikhs.[10] Many supporters of the separatist Southern Movement were also present.[27]

During the rally, a group of AQAP members had arrived in a vehicle including Mohammed Saleh al-Awlaki, who jumped onto the roof of the vehicle and delivered a speech to the crowd vowing revenge for the killing of the civilians. He stated that AQAP was not against Yemeni soldiers but that "our enemy is America and the puppet regime."[28] Fareed and his bodyguards attempted to stop the group, but they finished their speech and drove away before he could reach them. Videos of the speech were recorded and distributed by news outlets, resulting in the rally, which was meant to show that the victims of the attack weren't militants, being seen as a pro-AQAP gathering.[10] Awlaki was later killed in the 24 December strike.[16]

In Rafd, fearing more U.S. attacks, the Abdullah tribe decided to evict local AQAP cell leader Fahd al-Quso from the village, who had taken refuge there since 2007 in order to recruit fighters to the group. Quso complied, gathering other AQAP members in the area to leave as a collective before returning days later by himself, where he remained independently in the village until February 2010.[4]

A day after the 24 December strike, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted a suicide bombing abroad Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas day as it flew over Detroit, Michigan. AQAP claimed responsibility for the bombing, citing it as revenge for the civilians killed in the cruise missile attacks.[29][30]

Response

[edit]

After the al-Majalah attack, Yemeni 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" according to Human Rights Watch. A reported $100,000 was initially allocated to the provincial government to split between the families of the victims. The money was later increased, but the offer was rejected by the families on the grounds that it "did not promise to hold those responsible for the attacks to account."[12] An affected survivor said:

They offered us 10 Toyota Hiluxes as a down payment if we agreed to the 5.5 million rials. We refused. We have said to the government from the start, we want 10 billion rials [$51,000] compensation. We were flexible. We could have agreed on a lower sum. But the government refused.[12]

Some families began accepting government compensation plans by mid-2013. A total of 37 million rials ($170,000) was divided between 10 families, averaging $17,000 each.[12] The sum had only covered property damage and not the killed civilians.[15] On 22 October 2013, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington D.C. reported that all surviving families of the attack were compensated.[31]

The Yemeni government had offered to clear al-Majalah of remaining explosives but the residents rejected it, preferring help from an international organization out of fear that authorities would not sufficiently clear the area and would use the opportunity as a coverup.[12] By 2013, al-Majalah was still full of unexploded ordnance, making the area extremely dangerous to traverse.[15]

Responsibility

[edit]

Yemen falsely took responsibility for each of the attacks during their initial reporting in order to prevent local outrage driven by strong anti-American sentiment.[9][8][12] For the 17 December attacks, it claimed that MiG-29 fighters from the Yemeni Air Force had bombed an AQAP training camp in al-Majalah,[16] and that three other areas in Yemen were the targets of air and ground raids, leaving 34 militants dead and 21 captured altogether. State-sponsored Saba News Agency reported that the U.S. cluster munitions were actually mines planted by AQAP as a way to ward off independent investigators.[12] For the 24 December attack, the Yemeni government said it killed 30 AQAP militants and all leaders involved in the Rafd meeting.[32]

Despite the Yemeni government's claim, some American news agencies were told by anonymous U.S. officials that the strikes were conducted by the U.S. Navy under the direct orders of Obama.[33][19] Obama had called Saleh on the day of the strike and praised Yemen for "confronting the danger of terrorism represented by al-Qaeda for Yemen."[34] The New York Times wrote that the U.S. gave "firepower, intelligence and other support" for the strikes at the request of the Yemeni government, but Yemeni forces conducted it nonetheless.[5] Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alimi told parliament that the U.S. along with Saudi Arabia had provided intelligence for the operations.[28]

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 U.S. had conducted the strikes. According to him, the strikes had ceased in December as the "Yemeni government ascertained they weren't achieving results."[35]

Investigations

[edit]

A House of Representatives-commissioned inquiry into the al-Majalah bombing, officially titled the Commission of inquiry into the security incidents in Abyan province, was opened days after the attack. Headed by Himyar Abdullah al-Ahmar, a delegation of 15 members of parliament, which included Saleh bin Fareed, were sent to the village to survey it, where they found missiles with the label "Made in the United States of America."[13][36] The investigation was complete and published on 7 February 2010, confirming the militant and civilian death toll (along with identifying every civilian killed) and containing several eyewitness accounts.[13] The investigators found the entire area to be burnt and destroyed upon their arrival,[18] and that the survivors were forced to bury the victims in mass graves as their remains were mangled beyond identification.[13] The report recommended that a judicial investigation be launched into the bombing, the affected civilian victims should be financially and medically compensated, and the area should be cleared of remaining explosives.[18][12]

Abdulelah Haider Shaye, a local independent journalist, travelled to al-Majalah after the strike, where he took photographs of U.S. weapons and distributed them to media outlets and human rights organizations. Shaye's work was corroborated and utilized by Amnesty International,[37][38] which released a report on 7 June 2010 which contained several photos of the remnants of U.S. 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.[18][39]

Cables leak

[edit]
See also: United States diplomatic cables leak

On 28 November 2010, Wikileaks began distributing and publishing collections of classified U.S. government cables. Among them were several cables relating to the December 2009 U.S. attacks, which up until then was still unacknowledged by the US.[40][12] A cable dated to 21 December 2009, between the first and second round of strikes, recorded an interaction U.S. ambassador Stephen Seche had with Alimi, during which he recalled Alimi saying "Yemen insisted it must 'maintain the status quo' regarding the official denial of U.S. involvement. Saleh wanted operations to continue 'non-stop until we eradicate this disease.'"[8] Alimi told him "any evidence of greater U.S. involvement—such as U.S. munitions found at the sites—could be explained away as equipment purchased from the US."[12]

Another cable described a 2 January 2010 meeting in Sanaa between Saleh, Alimi and CENTCOM Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus praised Saleh for falsely claiming the attacks, which was followed by Saleh assuring him that the Yemeni government would continue to do so, though he rebuffed a request to deploy American soldiers to Yemen for counterterrorism operations. Alimi proceeded to joke that he had lied to Yemen's parliament in telling it that the strikes were conducted by Yemeni aircraft with US-supplied weapons. The meeting led to an agreement that the U.S. would thereon use fixed-wing aircraft and precision-guided munitions for operations in Yemen, as Saleh had criticized the cruise missiles used during the strikes for inaccuracy.[8]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Why The U.S. Is Aggressively Targeting Yemen". NPR. 16 May 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d Raghavan, Sudarsan; Shear, Michael D. (25 December 2009). "U.S.-aided attack in Yemen thought to have killed Aulaqi, 2 al-Qaeda leaders". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
  3. ^ a b Filkins, Dexter (4 April 2011). "After the Uprising". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 21 June 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d Worth, Robert F. (7 July 2010). "Is Yemen the Next Afghanistan?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  5. ^ a b Shanker, Thom; Landler, Mark (19 December 2009). "U.S. Aids Yemeni Raids on Al Qaeda, Officials Say". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 18 May 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  6. ^ McElroy, Damien (13 December 2009). "US special forces train Yemen army as Arab state becomes al-Qaeda 'reserve base'". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 23 March 2022. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
  7. ^ Macleod, Hugh (28 December 2009). "Al-Qaida: US support for Yemen crackdown led to attack". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
  8. ^ a b c d Booth, Robert; Black, Ian (3 December 2010). "WikiLeaks cables: Yemen offered US 'open door' to attack al-Qaida on its soil". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  9. ^ a b Shane, Scott (3 December 2010). "Yemen Sets Terms of a War on Al Qaeda". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 15 July 2024. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Scahill, Jeremy (23 April 2013). "32: "If They Kill Innocent Children and Call Them al Qaeda, Then We Are All al Qaeda"". Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield. PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781568584829. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
  11. ^ a b c Klaidman, Daniel (2012). "8. From Warfare to Lawfare". Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547547893. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Tayler, Letta (22 October 2013). ""Between a Drone and Al-Qaeda"". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h Woods, Chris (29 March 2012). "The civilian massacre the US neither confirms nor denies". The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Retrieved 21 June 2025.
  14. ^ "'Dozens killed' in Yemen raids". Al Jazeera. 18 December 2009. Retrieved 21 June 2025.
  15. ^ a b c Tayler, Letta (22 October 2013). "The Price of War". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 24 March 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  16. ^ a b c d e MacLeod, Hugh; Arrabyee, Nasser (3 January 2010). "Yemeni air attacks on al-Qaida fighters risk mobilising hostile tribes". The Observer. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
  17. ^ a b Filkins, Dexter (6 February 2013). "What We Don't Know About Drones". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on 12 July 2024. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  18. ^ a b c d e f "Yemen: Images of missile and cluster munitions point to US role in fatal attack". Amnesty International. 7 June 2010. Retrieved 21 June 2025.
  19. ^ a b "NBC: U.S. fired on al-Qaida targets in Yemen". NBC News. 19 December 2009. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  20. ^ a b Raghavan, Sudarsan (30 December 2009). "Former Guantanamo detainees fuel growing al-Qaeda cell". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  21. ^ Kenner, David (8 January 2010). "Yemen's Most Wanted". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 28 January 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  22. ^ Johnsen, Gregory (21 December 2010). "Al-Qaeda Raids". Big Think. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  23. ^ a b Raghavan, Sudarsan (18 December 2009). "Yemen asserts 34 rebels killed in raid on Qaeda". Boston.com. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  24. ^ "Yemen Al Qaeda video announces a new leader". Reuters. 28 May 2010. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
  25. ^ Isikoff, Michael (29 December 2009). "Yemeni Journalist Says Awlaki Alive, Well, Defiant". Newsweek. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
  26. ^ "'I'm Alive,' Says Yemen Radical Anwar Awlaki Despite U.S. Attack". ABC News. 31 December 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  27. ^ "Al-Qaeda leaders make Yemen speech". Al Jazeera. 22 December 2009. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  28. ^ a b "Ft. Hood Suspect's Cleric Killed in Yemen?". CBS News. 24 December 2009. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  29. ^ "Al Qaeda link investigated as clues emerge in foiled terror attack". CNN. 29 December 2009. Archived from the original on 31 December 2009. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  30. ^ Butters, Andrew Lee; Ghosh, Bobby; Hauslohner, Abigail (28 December 2009). "Yemen: Al-Qaeda's New Staging Ground?". TIME. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  31. ^ Dozier, Kimberly (23 October 2013). "US defends drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen". The Times of Israel. Associated Press. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  32. ^ "Kin: Radical Yemeni cleric unhurt in strike". NBC News. Associated Press. 25 December 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  33. ^ "Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen Terrorists". ABC News. 18 December 2009. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  34. ^ Ghobari, Mohammed (17 December 2009). "Yemen says security forces hit al Qaeda". Reuters. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  35. ^ Jamjoom, Mohammed (30 September 2010). "Yemen: U.S. has carried out airstrikes in Yemen". CNN. Retrieved 1 July 2025.
  36. ^ "Witness to a Massacre: Yemeni Tribal Leader Recalls How U.S. Attack on al-Majalah Killed 45 Civilians". Democracy Now!. 7 June 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  37. ^ Greenwald, Glenn (14 March 2012). "Obama's personal role in a journalist's imprisonment". Salon.com. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  38. ^ Deasy, Kristin (30 July 2016). "Abdulelah Haider Shaye, imprisoned Yemeni journalist, reportedly freed (VIDEO)". The World from PRX. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  39. ^ Spencer, Richard (7 June 2010). "US cluster bombs 'killed 35 women and children'". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 29 March 2024. Retrieved 1 July 2025.
  40. ^ Isikoff, Michael (30 November 2010). "Yemen cable gives al-Qaida new 'recruiting' tool". NBC News. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
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