U.S. soldier killed in raid in Yemen; 1st known combat death under Trump

SANAA, Yemen -- A U.S. military service member was killed Sunday during a raid against al-Qaida militants in central Yemen. An al-Qaida official and an online news service linked to the group said the raid killed about 30 people, including women and children.

The loss of the service member is the first known combat death of a member of the U.S. military under President Donald Trump.

The ground operation, which had been planned for months, was authorized by Trump, according to U.S. officials familiar with the mission. Trump has pledged to wage a more aggressive campaign against militant groups worldwide.

In a statement released by the White House, Trump called the raid "successful" and said it resulted in the capture of intelligence that would "assist the U.S. in preventing terrorism against its citizens and people around the world."

"Americans are saddened this morning with news that a life of a heroic service member has been taken in our fight against the evil of radical Islamic terrorism," Trump said in the statement.

The U.S. has been striking al-Qaida in Yemen from the air for more than 15 years, mostly using drones, and Sunday's surprise pre-dawn raid could signal a new escalation against extremist groups in the Arab world's poorest but strategically located country.

An al-Qaida official and an online news service linked to the terror group said the raid left about 30 people dead. Among the children killed was Anwaar, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric killed in a U.S. airstrike in Yemen in 2011, according to the girl's grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, who said Anwaar was visiting her mother when the raid took place. She was shot in the neck and bled for two hours before she died, he said.

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U.S. officials, after indicating that they could not confirm reports of civilian casualties, said they were assessing the claims.

A Yemeni official said 35 to 40 people were killed, though local media agencies suggested a lower death toll.

A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an episode whose details have not been made public, said the slain service member was killed in a firefight with militants. According to a statement from U.S. Central Command, 14 militants were killed during the operation.

The raid, which took place in a remote desert area of Yemen's Shabwa governorate, aimed to obtain intelligence information, including computer material, that was thought to be linked to planning for external attacks.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that three service members were wounded and that a fourth one was injured in a "hard landing" in a nearby location. The aircraft was unable to fly afterward and was "intentionally" destroyed, it added.

It also said U.S. service members taking part in the raid captured "information that will likely provide insight into the planning of future terror plots."

A U.S. defense official said the raid was approved by Trump. Former President Barack Obama had been briefed on it before he left office on Jan. 20, but for operational reasons it was not ready to be executed before he departed, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss details beyond those announced by the Pentagon and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Yemeni security and tribal officials said the raid in Yemen's central Bayda province killed three senior al-Qaida leaders: Abdul-Raouf al-Dhahab, Sultan al-Dhahab, and Seif al-Nims.

The al-Dhahabs, who are the late al-Awlaki's in-laws, are considered an ally of al-Qaida, which is now chiefly concentrated in Bayda. A third family member, Tarek al-Dhahab, was the leader of al-Qaida in Bayda but was reportedly killed in a family feud.

The news service linked to al-Qaida in Yemen likened the raid to a "massacre against Muslims" and said U.S. warplanes were first seen in the sky above the area at 9 p.m. Saturday and that the raid began at 2 a.m. on Sunday, with 16 missiles hitting three houses near Yakla village in Radaa district.

A two-hour gunbattle ensued after American service members landed on the ground, it said, during which dozens of civilians were killed.

The killed and wounded included some Saudis present at the site, according to the Yemeni officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief journalists.

The al-Qaida official sent to the AP in Cairo photos purportedly showing the bloodied bodies of several children killed in the raid along with houses showing bullet holes. The official requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Just over a week ago, suspected U.S. drone strikes killed three other alleged al-Qaida operatives in Bayda in what was the first-such killings reported in the country since Trump assumed the U.S. presidency.

The tribal officials said the Americans captured and departed with at least two unidentified individuals Sunday, but the U.S. official in Washington said no detainees were taken in the raid.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, long seen by Washington as among the most dangerous branches of the global terror network, has exploited the chaos of Yemen's civil war, seizing territory in the south and east.

The last time U.S. forces staged a raid on this scale was in December 2014, a few months before the country descended into civil war. But even before the war began, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula had seized large regions of southern Yemen, taking advantage of the political turbulence after the Arab Spring revolts of 2011 toppled long-time Yemeni autocrat, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Saleh and Washington had a wary counter-terrorism relationship with Saleh allowing U.S. forces to target Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in exchange for economic and military aid. Today, U.S. counterterrorism operations have been dramatically scaled back; the core of U.S. operations are centered around drone strikes that has killed dozens of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula leaders.

Information for this article was contributed by Ahmed Al-Haj, Maggie Michael, Jon Gambrell and Robert Burns of The Associated Press, and by Missy Ryan, Sudarsan Raghavan and Thomas Gibbons-Neff of The Washington Post.

A Section on 01/30/2017

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