Evidence presented of US involvement in 2009 airstrike in Yemen
By Bill RoggioJun 7, 2010
A December 2009 airstrike on insurgents in a known safe haven for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen that resulted in the deaths of both terrorists and civilians has been linked by to the US, according to photographic evidence produced by Amnesty International.
The photographs, released on Amnesty’s website today, show parts of a broken up, US-made, BGM-109D Tomahawk cruise missile, as well as an unexploded BLU 97 cluster bomblet, munitions used in the warhead of the Tomahawk.
The Dec. 17, 2009, strike targeted what was thought to be a training camp run by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in the town of Ma'jalah in the province Abyan. A separate strike also took place the same day in the province of Sana'a.
The Yemeni government initially claimed it carried out the strikes in Abyan and Sana’a, and said that 34 al Qaeda fighters were killed and an additional 17 fighters were later captured in ground operations. Independent reports indicated that between 60 and 90 civilians, mostly nomads living in a tent city, were killed. Amnesty claims, based on a Yemeni government investigation, that 14 al Qaeda fighters, along with 41 civilians, including 14 women and 21 children, were killed in the Abyan attack.
But within two days of the strikes, unnamed US intelligence officials acknowledged that the US participated in the strikes and used cruise missiles in the attacks. No official from the US Department of Defense publicly acknowledged involvement in the airstrikes.
US intelligence officials have since denied any direct role in subsequent airstrikes against al Qaeda in Yemen, but do say that the US is providing logistical and intelligence support to the Yemeni military. But the US is believed to have carried out some of the strikes in Yemen, including an attack on May 25 that killed a deputy governor of Marib province as he was meeting with al Qaeda. An unmanned US Predator, or the more deadly Reaper, was spotted in the region before the strike.
Amnesty has characterized the Dec. 17, 2009, airstrike in Abyan as the extrajudicial targeting of terrorists and said an effort should be made to “detain them.”
“A military strike of this kind against alleged militants without an attempt to detain them is at the very least unlawful,” Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program, said in the organization’s press release.
Amnesty’s criticism of the Abyan attack comes just days after the United Nation’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions called for an end to the CIA-run program that is targeting al Qaeda’s top leaders and external operations network in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Amnesty’s recommendation that the US should first attempt to detain terrorists in Yemen before launching strikes demonstrates a lack of understanding of al Qaeda’s control of regions in the country and the central government’s inability and unwillingness to tackle the terror network. Top members of the Yemeni government support al Qaeda, while the Yemeni security forces do not have the capacity to take on the terror group and its allied tribes head on.
Yemen has become one of al Qaeda's most secure bases and a hub for its activities on the Arabian Peninsula and on the Horn of Africa. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula maintains safe havens in various parts of the country and is also known to operate terror camps in Aden, Marib, Abyan, and in the Alehimp and Sanhan regions in Sana'a. The terror group has conducted attacks on oil facilities, tourists, the US embassy in Sana'a, and Yemeni security forces.
Yemen serves as a command and control center, a logistics hub, a transit point from Asia and the Peninsula, and a source of weapons and munitions for the al Qaeda-backed Shabaab and Hizbul Islam in Somalia.
"Yemen is Pakistan in the heart of the Arab world," a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal in 2009. "You have military and government collusion with al Qaeda, peace agreements, budding terror camps, and the export of jihad to neighboring countries."
Some of the top leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have been targeted in airstrikes since December 2009, including Abu Basir al Wuhayshi, the group's leader; Said Ali al Shihri, the second in command; Abu Hurayrah Qasim al Raymi, the military commander; Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish, the top ideologue; and Anwar al Awlaki, a recruiter and ideologue.
Airstrikes in Yemen targeting Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula:
• Yemeni airstrike kills deputy governor, al Qaeda operatives
May 25, 2010
• Yemeni airstrike hits al Qaeda camp
Mar. 14, 2010
• Airstrikes target home of Yemeni al Qaeda leader
Jan. 20, 2010
• Al Qaeda's military commander in Yemen reported killed
Jan. 15, 2010
• Yemeni airstrike targets top al Qaeda leaders
Dec. 24, 2009
• US launches cruise missile strikes against al Qaeda in Yemen
Dec. 17, 2009
Here is the Amnesty International article:
Images of missile and cluster munitions point to US role in fatal attack in Yemen
Unexploded BLU 97 cluster bomblet - the Tomahawk BGM-109D cruise missile would have carried 166 of these (full details below).
© Private
Part of propulsion unit of BGM-109D Tomahawk cruise missile.
© Private
Part of BGM-109D Tomahawk cruise missile, probably fuel tank section.
© Private
7 June 2010
Amnesty International has released images of a US-manufactured cruise missile that carried cluster munitions, apparently taken following an attack on an alleged al-Qa’ida training camp in Yemen that killed 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children.
The 17 December 2009 attack on the community of al-Ma'jalah in the Abyan area in the south of Yemen killed 55 people including 14 alleged members of al-Qa’ida.
“A military strike of this kind against alleged militants without an attempt to detain them is at the very least unlawful. The fact that so many of the victims were actually women and children indicates that the attack was in fact grossly irresponsible, particularly given the likely use of cluster munitions,” said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.
The Yemeni government has said its forces alone carried out the attack on al-Ma'jalah, the site of an alleged al-Qa'ida training camp in al-Mahfad district, Abyan Governorate.
Shortly after the attack some US media reported alleged statements by unnamed US government sources who said that US cruise missiles launched on presidential orders had been fired at two alleged al-Qa'ida sites in Yemen.
“Based on the evidence provided by these photographs, the US government must disclose what role it played in the al-Ma'jalah attack, and all governments involved must show what steps they took to prevent unnecessary deaths and injuries,” said Philip Luther.
The photographs enable the positive identification of damaged missile parts, which appear to be from the payload, mid-body, aft-body and propulsion sections of a BGM-109D Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile.
This type of missile, launched from a warship or submarine, is designed to carry a payload of 166 cluster submunitions (bomblets) which each explode into over 200 sharp steel fragments that can cause injuries up to 150m away. An incendiary material inside the bomblet also spreads fragments of burning zirconium designed to set fire to nearby flammable objects.
A further photograph, apparently taken within half an hour of the others, shows an unexploded BLU 97 A/B submunition itself, the type carried by BGM-109D missiles. These missiles are known to be held only by US forces and Yemeni armed forces are unlikely to be capable of using such a missile.
Amnesty International has requested information from the Pentagon about the involvement of US forces in the al-Ma'jalah attack, and what precautions may have been taken to minimize deaths and injuries, but has yet to receive a response.
“Amnesty International is gravely concerned by evidence that cluster munitions appear to have been used in Yemen, when most states around the world have committed to comprehensively ban these weapons,” said Mike Lewis, Amnesty International's arms control researcher.
“Cluster munitions have indiscriminate effects and unexploded bomblets threaten lives and livelihoods for years afterwards. All governments responsible for using them must urgently provide assistance to clear unexploded munitions.”
Neither the USA nor Yemen has yet signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a treaty designed to comprehensively ban such weapons which is due to enter into force on 1 August 2010.
A Yemeni parliamentary committee that investigated the 17 December 2009 attack reported in February that 41 people it described as civilians had been killed. In its report the committee said that on arrival at the scene of the attack in al-Ma’jalah it “found that all the homes and their contents were burnt and all that was left were traces of furniture.”
It said the committee “found traces of blood of the victims and a number of holes in the ground left by the bombing… as well as a number of unexploded bombs”, and that one survivor told the committee that his family, who were killed although they had committed no crime, were sleeping when the missiles struck on the morning of 17 December 2009.
In its report, the Yemeni parliamentary committee said the Yemeni government should open a judicial investigation into the attack and bring to justice those responsible for the killings of civilians, but no such investigation is known to have been held as yet.
The committee reported statements by the Abyan Governorate authorities that 14 alleged members of al-Qa’ida were also killed in the attack, but said it had been unable to obtain information confirming this and was able to obtain the name of only one of the 14 from the Abyan authorities.
Image 1, additional details: The Tomahawk BGM-109D cruise missile would have carried 166 BLU 97 cluster bomblets, which are designed to scatter over a wide area, acting indiscriminately when used in civilian areas. Many also fail to explode on impact, as in the photograph above, but may explode if disturbed, making land dangerous for communities to use for months or years after attacks.
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