Navy SEAL Raid in Ma'rib, Yemen: Villagers Say Five Civilians Killed, Including a 15-Year-Old Shot While Fleeing (May 2017)

What happened

Early on May 23, 2017, US Navy SEALs raided the hamlet of al Adhlan, in al Jubah district of Yemen's Ma'rib province. Villagers estimated 40 to 60 commandos, supported by eight or nine attack helicopters and other aircraft; some residents said Emirati forces also took part (The Intercept). US officials said the main aim was to collect laptops, phones and other material for intelligence on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (CBS News). It was the second SEAL raid in Yemen acknowledged by the military under President Trump (The Intercept), four months after the January raid on Yakla.

US Central Command said seven AQAP members were killed "through a combination of small arms fire and precision airstrikes," with the support of Yemen's authorities; two SEALs suffered arm injuries (Al Jazeera; CBS News). Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said there were "no credible indications of civilian casualties" (The Intercept). Al Jazeera noted the statements "could not be independently verified."

Residents gave a different account. The Intercept's Iona Craig, reporting by phone with residents and with people visiting the wounded in hospital, wrote that "five civilians including a child were killed and another five were wounded." Villagers said that 15-year-old Abdullah Saeed Salem al Adhal "was shot dead as he fled from his home with women and children," and that Nasser Ali Mahdi al Adhal, at least 70 and, according to Reprieve, partially blind, "was killed while attempting to greet the Navy SEALs, after apparently mistaking them for visitors." Othman Mohammed Saleh al Adhal, 12, and Murad al Adhal, 22, a college student, were wounded. One of the dead, Al Khader Saleh Salem al Adhal, was a soldier in the Yemeni army. Villagers reported at least four homes destroyed and dozens of livestock killed. AQAP issued a statement denying that there was an al-Qaeda camp in the village.

The count is disputed. Reprieve also reported five civilians killed; the Yemeni human-rights group Mwatana, in its own investigation, concluded that two to three civilians died. The monitoring group Airwars, compiling these and other reports, records 2 to 12 civilian deaths and grades the allegation "fair" (reported by two or more credible sources).

Legal analysis

Armed-conflict nexus. The United States treats itself as in a non-international armed conflict with AQAP, and the raid was a military operation against that group. Common Article 3 and customary IHL apply; the relevant Rome Statute provisions are Article 8(2)(c)(i) and 8(2)(e)(i).

Element by element (war crime of attacking civilians or violence to life, NIAC).

• Victims were civilians or not taking part in hostilities: reasonable basis to believe for at least some. A 15-year-old fleeing with women and children and a man of at least 70 walking to greet the soldiers would not be legitimate targets on the villagers' account. The status of the Yemeni army soldier is unclear.
• Perpetrator directed the attack at them, or killed them while they took no part in hostilities: not shown. The accounts describe deaths during a night raid with air support. They do not establish whether the people were deliberately targeted, misidentified or caught in fire directed elsewhere.
• Intent and knowledge: not shown. No US investigation, rules of engagement or targeting data are public.
• Nexus to armed conflict: met.

Evidence threshold. The account of civilian deaths rests on named villagers speaking to The Intercept and Reprieve, with a separate Mwatana investigation finding a lower toll of two to three; Airwars grades it 'fair'. That is credible reporting of facts that would, if accurate and if intent were shown, amount to a war crime: an Article 53(1) reasonable basis. It is not reasonable grounds to believe under Article 58. No UN body, ICRC statement or legal analysis applying the law to these facts was found.

Strongest defence argument. The raid targeted a group with which the US is in armed conflict; it took place at night; and combatants in such settings may not be easily distinguished from civilians. The Pentagon found "no credible indications" of civilian casualties. The argument has weight because the civilian accounts are unverified. It is weakened by context: the Yakla raid four months earlier had left, in Al Jazeera's words, "at least 16 civilians, including women and children, dead," and the US has published no investigation of this raid.

Why this grade

Severe, potential. Credible, named, first-hand accounts describe the killing of a child and an elderly civilian during a US operation, which is concrete harm to identifiable people. A specific war crime, attacks on persons taking no active part in hostilities in a NIAC, is plausibly in play at the Article 53(1) level, so the entry carries potential. The intent element and independent corroboration are missing, so the grade is not extreme. The civilian-casualty figures are disputed (two to five killed across the sources), and the numeric count here uses the lowest credible figure.