US President Donald Trump | AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
The U.S.
military said on Wednesday, February 1, 2017 it was looking into
whether more civilians were killed in a raid on al Qaeda in Yemen on the
weekend, in the first operation authorised by President Donald Trump as
commander in chief.
U.S. Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens was
killed in the raid on a branch of al Qaeda, also known as AQAP, in al
Bayda province, which the Pentagon said also killed 14 militants.
However, medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women
and children, were killed.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement
that an investigating team had “concluded regrettably that civilian
non-combatants were likely killed” during Sunday’s raid. It said
children may have been among the casualties.
Central Command said its assessment
“seeks to determine if there were any still-undetected civilian
casualties in the ferocious firefight.”
U.S. military officials told Reuters
that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without
sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.
As a result, three officials said, the
attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al Qaeda
base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected
contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists.
The Pentagon directed queries about the
officials’ characterization of the raid to U.S. Central Command, which
pointed only to its statement on Wednesday.
“CENTCOM asks for operations we believe
have a good chance for success and when we ask for authorization we
certainly believe there is a chance of successful operations based on
our planning,” CENTCOM spokesman Colonel John Thomas said.
“Any operation where you are going to put operators on the ground has inherent risks,” he said.
The U.S. officials said the extremists’
base had been identified as a target before the Obama administration
left office on Jan. 20, but then-President Barack Obama held off
approving a raid ahead of his departure.
A White House official said the
operation was thoroughly vetted by the previous administration and that
the previous defense secretary had signed off on it in January. The raid
was delayed for operational reasons, the White House official said.
The military officials who spoke to
Reuters on condition of anonymity said “a brutal firefight” killed Owens
and at least 15 Yemeni women and children. One of the dead was the
8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant killed by a 2011 U.S.
drone strike.
Some of the women were firing at the U.S. force, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters.
Intelligence Gathered
The American elite forces did not seize
any militants or take any prisoners offsite, but White House spokesman
Sean Spicer said on Wednesday the raid yielded benefits.
A senior leader in Yemen’s al Qaeda
branch, Abdulraoof al-Dhahab, and other militants were killed in the
gunbattle, al Qaeda said.
One of the three U.S. officials said on-the-ground surveillance of the compound was “minimal, at best.”
“The decision was made … to leave it to
the incoming administration, partly in the hope that more and better
intelligence could be collected,” that official said.
As Sunday’s firefight intensified, the
raiders called in Marine helicopter gunships and Harrier jump jets, and
then two MV-22 Osprey vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to extract
the SEALs.
One of the two suffered engine failure,
two of the officials said, and hit the ground so hard that two crew
members were injured, and one of the Marine jets had to launch a
precision-guided bomb to destroy it.
Trump traveled to Dover Air Force Base
in Delaware on Wednesday in an unexpected visit to meet the family of
Owens, who had been a chief special warfare operator.
via Reuters
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