Raid on Yakla 2017
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 29 January 2017 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 2017 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | Yemen | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | United Arab Emirates, United States | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 14.5980, 45.0600 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Raid on Yakla was a joint United States/United Arab Emirates military operation carried out on January 29, 2017 in al-Ghayil, a village in the Yakla area of the Al Bayda Governorate of central Yemen, during the Yemeni civil war. Prepared by U.S. counterterrorism officials under President Barack Obama, the mission was ultimately authorized by President Donald Trump nine days into his presidency. The mission's goal was to gather intelligence on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and to target the group's leader, Qasim al-Raymi. The raid was led by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) with resources from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as commandos from the United Arab Emirates Army.
Between 10 and 30 civilians (including Nawar al-Awlaki, the eight-year-old American daughter of the deceased al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki) were killed in the raid along with up to 14 al-Qaeda fighters, as well as American Navy SEAL William Owens. A Bell Boeing MV-22B Osprey was destroyed during the operation.
The raid in Yemen was described as "risky from the start and costly in the end"; the "botched" operation raised questions about the choice to go forward with the raid "without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup…
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Raid on Yakla (revision 1376538067), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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