Pentagon argues value of Yemen raid using old evidence

A US military effort Friday to demonstrate the intelligence value of a weekend commando raid in Yemen ended in a snafu, when video clips the military released from a computer seized during the operation turned out to be years old and already public, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The foul-up came as the White House and the Pentagon face public pressure to prove that the raid on an al Qaeda site—which resulted in the death of a US Navy SEAL, six injured US service members, likely civilian casualties and a ruined $70 million US aircraft—was successful, despite those costs.

Commandos carrying out the raid, which was the first counter-terror operation known to have been ordered by President Donald Trump, came under fire as soon as they landed, raising questions over whether al Qaeda operatives had known about it in advance.

US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East and plans to host President Trump at its Tampa headquarters for a visit on Monday, released abridged clips of five longer videos from a computer that US commandos seized during the raid on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.

“The videos are one example of the volumes of sensitive al Qaeda terror-planning information recovered during the operation,” Central Command Spokesman Col. John Thomas said in a statement when the videos were released on a Defense Department network on Friday morning. “What was captured from the site has already afforded insights into al Qaeda leadership, AQAP methods of exporting terror, and how they communicate.”

Central Command, however, later took down the clips after they turned out to be nearly a decade old and already published online. The SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist websites, had posted the footage in 2007.

The Pentagon said despite their age, the clips—one of which showed a man demonstrating the process for making the explosive Triacetone Triperoxide, or TATP—were indeed on a computer seized in the raid.

“I would assert that it doesn’t really matter when it was made,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the Pentagon. “The fact is, they had it. The fact that they had it is illustrative of who they are and what their intentions are.”

Central Command also said Friday that post-raid analysis determined several of the 14 combatants from AQAP who died in the raid “were terrorist network leaders and facilitators.”

“Officials now believe that Sultan al Dhahab and Abd-al-Ra’uf al-Dhahab, two longstanding AQAP operational planners and weapons experts, were among the enemy killed at the scene,” Central Command said in a statement. The two men are prominent AQAP figures in Bayda province, the region in central Yemen where the raid took place. The US military described the target as an AQAP staging area, propaganda center and logistics hub.

The Pentagon’s effort to prove the raid yielded valuable intelligence comes a day after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer described the mission as a successful operation by all standards, even though he said it was “tough” to use the word success given that a US service member died.

The raid resulted in the death of a 36-year-old U.S. Navy SEAL, Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens. Three other U.S. service members were wounded during the raid. Another three were wounded when a V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft that was supporting the mission made a crash landing. The U.S. military immediately destroyed the damaged aircraft, which costs about $70 million.

The raid also appears to have resulted in the death of civilians. Central Command released a statement on Feb. 1 saying civilians were likely killed in a firefight during the raid.

According to local residents, among the civilians killed was the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and AQAP leader killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen authorized by President Barack Obama in 2011. The Pentagon didn’t confirm she was killed in the raid.

Source: MENA