2002 Marib airstrike

2002 Marib airstrike
Part of the war on terror and US airstrikes on Yemen
Remnants of Harithi's vehicle
Type	Drone strike, targeted killing
Location	Al-Naqaa desert, Marib Governorate, Yemen 15°32′18″N 45°41′15″E / 15.538461°N 45.687604°E / 15.538461; 45.687604[1]
Planned by	United States Supported by: Yemen
Commanded by	George Tenet Michael DeLong
Target	Abu Ali al-Harithi
Date	3 November 2002 (2002-11-03)
Executed by	Central Intelligence Agency
Outcome	Successful
Casualties	6 killed, including Harithi and Kamal Derwish 1 injured
Al-Naqaa desert Location within Yemen

On November 3, 2002, an MQ-1 Predator operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched an airstrike on a vehicle driving through the desert in Marib Governorate, Yemen. The strike killed six suspected militants, including its target Abu Ali al-Harithi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen and a lead suspect in the USS Cole bombing. Harithi had been the subject of a joint manhunt between the United States and Yemen after the latter failed to capture him in a December 2001 raid. The Yemeni government allowed the CIA to fly surveillance drones to search for him, while special forces sought him on the ground and a joint intelligence team traced his whereabouts.

On the day of the strike, Harithi's phone signal was intercepted by the National Security Agency (NSA) and his location pinpointed to a farm. The Special Activities Division (SAD), a covert unit of the CIA, routed a Predator to the location, and proceeded to follow him as he left the farm in a convoy of two vehicles. Tapping into the phone call, the NSA confirmed that Harithi was in the target vehicle after hearing him give directions to the driver. Viewing a live video feed from CIA headquarters, agency director George Tenet obtained direct permission to launch the strike from Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh as well as US Central Command deputy commander Michael DeLong. Upon receiving clearance, the Predator launched a missile at the vehicle and destroyed it, killing six people and injuring one.

Saleh agreed to the strike on the basis that it would be kept a secret. A cover-up story was initially presented to local and international media describing an accidental explosion, while US officials denied any direct military action. However, Secretary Deputy of Defense Paul Wolfowitz publicly leaked the strike during an interview on November 5 amid American midterm elections, likely hoping to highlight a victory for the war on terror. The announcement erupted fury from the Yemeni public over what was perceived as a violation of sovereignty. The government was angered by the US violating the deal and embarrassed by the intense local criticism, and subsequently banned the US from flying drones in the country until 2011.

The operation was the first drone strike conducted by the United States outside of Afghanistan, and its first targeted killing against al-Qaeda. For this, it faced criticism from the international community as an extrajudicial killing and a violation of international law, including that from the United Nations special rapporteur. The US defended the strike as a wartime action against enemy combatants. Further scrutiny was drawn from the revelation that Kamal Derwish, ringleader of the Lackawanna Six and an American citizen, had died in the strike. The CIA initially maintained that it did not know at the time Derwish was in the vehicle, but later reports claim that it did know but justified his death at the time due to his association with al-Qaeda.

Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, targeted killing was an especially sensitive topic within US government agencies, particularly due to the signing of Executive Order 11905 in 1976, which banned political assassinations. Some exceptions were permitted between then: a 1989 clarification ruled that several types of armed combatants, including terrorists, could be targeted by the US military if they posed a threat to the US. The Bill Clinton administration considered giving the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) authority to kill Osama bin Laden after his 1998 fatwa, but no decision was reached, partly due an internal debate as to what circumstances Bin Laden could be killed in without it being considered an assassination. A week before the attacks, senior officials from the George W. Bush administration were still deciding whether to target Bin Laden using the MQ-1 Predator drone, which had recently been successfully modified to launch missile strikes.^[2]

The debate was effectively settled after the attacks: on September 17, Bush signed off on a secret presidential finding which gave the CIA the ability to independently pursue and kill al-Qaeda members or other terrorists internationally on its list of high-value targets. Other legislature, including Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001, and another finding in early 2002 which specifically gave the CIA the ability to conduct targeted killings via drone, paved the way for its adoption.^[3] The Predator was first utilized by the CIA during the invasion of Afghanistan and throughout the next year to target al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.^[4]

Relations between the US and Yemen were already strained following the USS Cole bombing.^[5][6] The attack, perpetrated on October 12, 2000, involved two suicide bombers ramming a small boat loaded with explosives into the side of the vessel while it was docked in Aden, killing 17 American sailors. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) launched an investigation into the attack but encountered significant difficulties throughout it.^[7] American agents were operating under the constant monitoring and disdain of local authorities and officials,^[8][9] while the US suspected that Islamist sympathizers within the Yemeni government, some of whom were former mujahideen, were complacent.^[7] The FBI determined in December that al-Qaeda perpetrated the bombing.^[9] As the investigation shifted to Sanaa, the FBI grew even more cautious of the locals. The investigation had been completely halted by mid-2001 as a plot to bomb the local US embassy was discovered.^[7][10]

The 9/11 attacks posed an even greater threat to Yemen's standings with the US. Within the American government, Yemen had began to be seen as a central front for the war on terror and a prime destination for al-Qaeda members seeking refuge and a place to regroup, owing to its lawlessness and ungoverned areas.^[11][12] Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, feared his country would be the next to see US military action after Afghanistan. Thus, Yemen took the role of a partner in the war on terror, with Saleh sending an advisor to Washington on September 20 to announce his position as an ally and to clarify what was required of his country.^[13] Several sets of demands were given back to assure greater collaboration on counterterrorism, such as the facilitation of greater intelligence cooperation, which allowed the CIA and FBI to resume the Cole investigation and gain access to key case documents, the establishment of a joint US-Yemeni intelligence room to rapidly share information on terrorist targets, with a Cryptologic Support Group (CSG) from the National Security Agency (NSA) being deployed to do so, and the sharing of phone records and dossiers for several al-Qaeda suspects with the CIA.^[14]

During a November 27, 2001, meeting at the White House,^[15] Bush gave Saleh a list of militants he wanted captured by the country, with the top priority being to arrest Abu Ali al-Harithi, al-Qaeda's chief of operations in Yemen and a central conspirator in the Cole bombing.^[16][17] Harithi was also featured on the CIA's high-value target list.^[18] Saleh insisted that Yemen alone would pursue Harithi, while Bush expressed that he "would be more than happy to send in US Special Forces" if the listed suspects could not be caught.^[15][17] Harithi, along with a handful of other militants, were seeking tribal protection in the remote village of Hosun al-Jalal in Marib Governorate, remaining there from late August 2001 until mid or late November 2001, when they were pressured by the locals into leaving after authorities had demanded they be turned over.^[19][20] On December 18, 2001, Republican Guard forces trained by the US launched a raid on the village in an attempt to capture the two. Clashes with local tribesmen left 18 soldiers dead.^[20]

In the aftermath of the failed raid, the Yemeni government quietly permitted the US to intensify its hunt for Harithi, including authorization for the CIA to fly surveillance drones over its airspace. Numerous US government agencies were involved in tracking down Harithi, including the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Intelligence Support Activity surveillance unit, CENTCOM Special Forces, and State Department diplomats.^[21] US Special Forces teams ostensibly sent in March 2002 to train the Republican Guard were also preparing to "establish operational capacity to track al Qaeda suspects to find and fix their location so that US forces could finish them off."^[22][23] Ambassador Edmund Hull arranged meetings with local tribesmen and tribal sheikhs in Marib where he distributed payments in exchange for information on Harithi's whereabouts.^[24][25][26]

A breakthrough in the search came in August 2002, when an al-Qaeda plot to attack the local US embassy was foiled after two Islamists handling explosives had accidentally detonated them in a Sanaa apartment. Yemeni and US authorities collaborated in the subsequent investigation and the interrogation of the apartment owner, which "regained the initiative" for Harithi.^[7][27] Further advances were made in late October 2002 upon the arrest of Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the Cole bombing, in the United Arab Emirates, where interrogators were able to listen to phone calls between him and Harithi.^[21] Harithi had kept on him up to five phones during his time on the run, each suspected to have been equipped with multiple SIM cards to throw off spies.^[28] From there, NSA agents gathered a partial list of phone numbers used by Harithi and set up a system which would sound an alarm at their headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, if one of his recorded numbers were ever in use.^[29][30]

By this time, Harithi and his bodyguards were believed to be residing in Yemen's portion of the Rub al Khali desert, constantly shifting locations while utilizing different vehicles and paying local Bedouins to navigate them.^[21][31] Yemeni security forces and US Special Forces contingents, such as the 5th Special Forces Group, had been searching for Harithi on the ground for months, while US Air Force U-2 planes and CIA Predator's patrolled the airspace.^[21][32] In at least two instances, US forces were preparing to launch a drone strike before Yemeni agents informed them that they were mistakenly targeting civilian Bedouins.^[28]

Separately, by mid-2002 US authorities had launched an international manhunt to locate Kamal Derwish, a naturalized US citizen of Yemeni descent who was believed to the ringleader the Lackawanna Six, a group of Yemeni Americans charged with materially supporting al-Qaeda and attending a training camp in Afghanistan. Derwish was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list, and was believed by authorities and officials to be hiding in Yemen along with Jaber Elbaneh.^[33][34][35] At the time of the arrests in September 2002, Derwish was viewed as the most important member of the group.^[36] He was not publicly discussed by authorities,^[37] and was referred to in court documents as "uncharged co-conspirator A."^[34] FBI agents were deployed to the country later in the month in order to apprehend him and Elbaneh.^[38] Some officials suspected that Derwish had been in contact with Harithi.^[39][40]

On the afternoon of November 3, 2002, a Trojan antenna system stationed at a US Army base in Kuwait intercepted the signal of one of the NSA's recorded phone numbers belonging to Harithi.^[41] NSA agents at their headquarters and the CSG unit in Yemen both responded the signal and pinpointed it using GPS tracking to a farm in Marib Governorate.^[42][25] CIA agents from the Special Activities Division stationed in Camp Lemonnier, a French-owned military base in Djibouti,^[43] directed a Predator armed with two Hellfire missiles to the location. The drone operators had access to a live video feed from the Predator which was being transmitted to the base.^[25]

As the Predator reached and surveilled the position overhead, US Special Forces were preparing to launch a raid on the farm when Harithi left the premises.^[44][25] A Yemeni agent on the US ambassador's payroll watched Harithi getting into a black Toyota Land Cruiser with a Saudi Arabian license plate^[28] alongside five other men, while another vehicle was designated for their women. The spy then contacted the CIA and shared his details about the vehicle. The drone had been monitoring Harithi as he left and followed his car.^[45][46] CIA director George Tenet, who was viewing the Predator's video feed through a broadcast at the Counterterrorism Mission Center in Langley,^[44] phoned CENTCOM deputy commander Michael DeLong to inform him of the target.^[47] DeLong went to the UAV room in MacDill Air Force Base, where the video feed displayed the vehicle driving through the desert.^[48]

An NSA analyst tapping into the call was unfamiliar with the person initially speaking on the phone,^[42] who was driving the car while seemingly arranging a rendezvous point with another al-Qaeda operative.^[49] However, he eventually recognized that Harithi was in the back seat of the Land Cruiser after hearing a six-second conversation of him giving directions to the driver, confirming it with a colleague.^[42] Tenet received and relayed the information to DeLong, both of them agreeing that Harithi was positively identified.^[49][44] The CIA had additionally determined that Derwish was present in the vehicle,^[33] with Tenet reportedly telling DeLong over the phone "one of them is an American—the fat guy. But he's al Qaeda."^[49] After receiving final permission to launch the strike from Saleh^[45][49] and DeLong,^[48] Tenet gave permission to fire.^[49]

As the Land Cruiser made its way from the main road to an open track in the al-Naqaa desert,^[50] an hour after the cell signal was originally picked up,^[28] the Predator launched a missile at it, instantly destroying it and killing six occupants.^[45] A seventh passenger managed to escape the vehicle before the missile struck and survived the attack injured.^[51][46][52] US officials blamed the severity of the destruction on an "unexplained secondary explosion," suggesting that the vehicle held explosives or flammable materials.^[53] Local authorities found traces of weapons, ammunition, explosives and communications equipment within its remains.^[54] The destroyed vehicle was taken away to Marib city a day later for inspection,^[50][55] while roadblocks were set up at the scene.^[54]

A helicopter carrying Yemeni security officials arrived at the scene shorty after the strike to examine its aftermath and confirm the casualties.^[56][57] A CIA agent was also present, and collected DNA samples from those killed.^[49] The bodies of the victims were then transported to a military hospital in Sanaa, where American officials took additional DNA sample which were sent to a US military laboratory for identification.^[28] Harithi was confirmed by the US to be dead through this process.^[58] He was reportedly the only identifiable person within the wreckage, only though a distinct mark on his leg.^[45] His funeral and burial took place in Shabwah on November 9 according to local officials.^[59] Four other individuals killed were members of the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, a local Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda and the USS Cole bombing.^[51] The last person killed was identified by the Yemeni government as Ahmed Hijazi.^[39]

Long Island-based newspaper Newsday was the first publication to report that Ahmed Hijazi was an American citizen on November 7.^[60] At the time. authorities were reported to have been investigating whether the individual killed was Derwish, as the name Ahmed Hijazi matched an alias which investigators of the Lackawanna Six case identified him as using. The CIA and FBI were conducting forensic tests, including DNA sampling, to definitively identify Hijazi.^[39][61] A US passport was reportedly found near the area of the strike and was used in the investigation.^[57]

Derwish's family learned of his death through media reports and were not contacted by the US government.^[62] On November 11, a woman believed to be Derwish's relative confirmed his death and said that their family was in mourning. By November 12, US officials were of the belief that Derwish was killed in the strike, and had went by Ahmed Hijazi as a pseudonym.^[63][64] Officials initially claimed that the CIA did not know Derwish was in the car at the time of the strike.^[39] However, this was contradicted by Dana Priest in a 2010 article for The Washington Post. According to her, the CIA knew Derwish was in the vehicle alongside Harithi, but due to the latter's importance and the rarity of the circumstances, the CIA justified the deaths of everyone in the car as legitimate for associating with him.^[65]

Both the CIA and Saleh were adamant towards maintaining the operation a secret: Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage recalled that "the deniability was an important component of the mission."^[44] Shifting the blame would grant the US the luxury of avoiding questions about the legality and ethics of the operation.^[66] For the Yemeni government, it would allow them to avoid inevitable criticism and resentment of US military action that would arrive from the "traditional, tribal Muslim society" of Yemen.^[67] Plausible cover-up stories were developed for Yemen to publicly follow;^[49] the Land Cruiser was carrying a propane tank or explosives and had blown up accidentally, or had struck a landmine in the desert.^[45][68] These narratives were what was originally reported by local and international media based off "unnamed tribal or government sources."^[68] Despite this, within two days local tribesmen were detailing to journalists how they had seen a helicopter at the scene of the strike, which US media interpreted to be a drone.^[69]

CIA and Department of Defense officials initially refused to discuss the strike publicly, only stating that the US military was not responsible. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld refused to directly acknowledge any US involvement, but told reporters regarding the death of Harithi that "it would be a very good thing if he were out of business". During a rally for the upcoming midterm elections, Bush told supporters that al-Qaeda would be treated as "international killers" and would be hunted down wherever.^[70] In spite of this, by the next day several news agencies were reporting a drone strike conducted by the CIA via anonymous sources.^[67]

Despite the agreement, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz revealed that the US had conducted the drone strike and praised it during an interview with CNN on November 5, labeling it a success against al-Qaeda which would pressure it to change its tactics.^[71] Wolfowitz's public acknowledgement of the strike, allegedly done on the order of Rumsfeld,^[68] was intended to serve as a victory for the Bush administration's war on terror just before midterm elections were set to take place.^[72][73] Within the government, it was likely assumed that the disclosure would not cause significant controversy as the Yemeni government had agreed to it and no civilians were harmed.^[74] The Telegraph reported that the disclosure may have provided a boost in popularity for the Republican Party during the election.^[75]

The strike "was applauded by many Americans, and also by the media, as progress in the war against terrorism," and "prompted only modest protests abroad and almost none at home."^[28][76] It was noted to be consistent with the Bush Doctrine, which commits to preemptive strikes against terrorist targets.^[77] The Yemeni-American community in Lackawanna meanwhile mourned the death of Derwish.^[78] Within the international community, several figures condemned the strike as an extrajudicial killing.^[79] The open adoption of a targeted killing operation led to accusations of the US holding a double standard on the matter, as it routinely condemned Israel's targeted killings of Hamas leaders.^[72][69] Furthermore, the revelation that an American citizen was killed led to additional opposition from civil liberties and human rights groups.^[80]

Internally, the US intelligence and special operations communities, which had specifically intended for the strike to remain confidential, were angered by the public claim of responsibility.^[71] One CIA official complained that due to the leak, other countries would be more hesitant of allowing the organization to operate their Predator's.^[69] Regardless, the Bush administration publicly defended the strike and claimed that it was unrepresentative of a broader shift in policy.^[80][81] Several officials, such as National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, called it a defensive act and highlighted the unique nature of the war on terror as justification.^[80][40] State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher affirmed that the US would maintain its position on targeted killing in regards to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.^[82] Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed targeted killing-related criticisms by equating the strike to other operations launched by previous administrations, specifically the 1998 missile strikes in Afghanistan against Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He further elaborated that this instance of targeted killing was different to that of Israel's as the latter was obstructing the region's peace process.^[83]

In contrast to the Western world, the strike produced outrage in Yemen, where sentiment critical of the US and sympathetic to Islamists already ran high among the populace.^[84] Nationwide anti-American protests led to authorities evacuating and temporarily shutting down the US embassy in Sanaa.^[72] Local religious leaders and tribesmen vowed revenge for Hairthi's death,^[75] though his own tribe did not claim a wrongful killing by the government, as is common in Yemeni tradition.^[85] The buildup to and eventual invasion of Iraq in March 2003 led to the Yemeni public virulently opposing any cooperation with the US during the timeframe, further adding to the strike's controversy.^[86] Political analyst Walid Kazziha believed that "this kind of action undermines the credibility of the Arab governments friendly to the United States" and would ignite uproar in the Arab world, which would draw comparisons between the strike and the actions of Israel.^[87]

The Yemeni government was angered by US officials violating their agreement on maintaining the secrecy of the strike, partly due to the fact that they were still hunting Harithi's associates.^[81] Yahya al-Muttawakil, deputy secretary-general of the ruling General People's Congress, was the first official to publicly discuss the strike on November 12. He told an interviewer that the situation was an example as to why Yemen was reluctant to cooperate closely with the US: "They don't consider the internal circumstances in Yemen. In security matters, you don't want to alert the enemy."^[24] The Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), a coalition of various opposition groups, issued a statement condemning the strike as a violation of Yemen's national sovereignty, and criticized the government for remaining silent.^[88] On November 19, Interior Minister Rashad al-Alimi acknowledged Yemen's cooperation in conducting the strike, and claimed that they were intending to release a joint statement with the US before the leak.^[52][89]

Saleh was personally enraged by the leak, and complained to US General Tommy Franks during a later meeting that it would cause him major issues.^[71] He felt as though he was slighted and embarrassed by the US after risking his reputation locally and in the region, particularly with Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.^[90][91] Denying reports at first, it would take a year for Saleh to eventually admit that he had authorized the strike amid relentless public criticism of both it itself and its cover-up.^[92]

Al-Qaeda in Yemen sought to assassinate US ambassador Hull, a key component in the strike, as revenge for the death of Harithi. According to Hull, the group "had a cell of very experienced operatives dedicated to that mission for the better part of 2002," and had gotten as far as to plan the attack and surveille the area. The plot would have had militants stationed at two intersections to the right and to the left of the US embassy in Sanaa, where they would wait for Hull's motorcade and then ambush it with either a rocket or a car bomb. The Central Security Forces, a security unit of Yemen's Ministry of Interior, eventually uncovered the whereabouts of the plot's ringleader and arrested him, foiling the assassination attempt.^[7] Five men were convicted of plotting the attack and were sentenced to five years of imprisonment in August 2004.^[93]

On March 4, 2004, the seventh passenger and sole survivor from the strike, Abdul Raouf Naseeb, was apprehended by security forces in Abyan governorate after having been besieged in the mountains with a group of militants the previous day. He was suspected of planning the April 2003 prison break in Aden which freed several al-Qaeda suspects involved in the USS Cole bombing.^[94] Naseeb was tried for an alleged minor role in the Cole bombing, but was later acquitted. He was again arrested in 2012 as an al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula commander.^[95]

Assassinations were still illegal under American law at the time. Officials therefore publicly rationalized the strike through the fact that none of the individuals killed were regarded as civilian political leaders, as well as through a presidential finding authorizing the CIA to attack al-Qaeda targets internationally, making Harithi, Derwish and their associates armed combatants and military targets.^[40][96]

Most American legal experts, although critical of the government's methods in some regards, did not deem the strike on Harithi to be illegal under domestic law.^[28] Jeffrey Smith, former general counsel of the CIA, said the operation "was not an assassination–it was simply a responsive military strike."^[83] Suzanne Spaulding, a former deputy general counsel, believed that due to the Bush administration framing the strike as a wartime action against an enemy combatant, it could not be considered an assassination. Defining an assassination as a killing which "is undertaken for political purposes during peacetime," Duke University law professor Scott Silliman saw the strike as ineligible to be considered so as the US was "most emphatically at war."^[97] Goldman believed the Bush administration would frame the strike as a case of self-defense against al-Qaeda, stating: "The US is not in a situation of peace with these people. This is not putting poison into Castro’s toothpaste."^[98] Regardless, M. Cherif Bassiouni called the strike "a dangerous precedent," comparing the situation to "if a US drug agent killed a narcotics trafficker rather than arresting him and putting him on trial". According to him, relatives of the victims killed could potentially sue US officials involved in the strike under the Alien Tort Claims Act, but not the CIA itself due to sovereign immunity.^[98] The US State Department initially intended to regard the strike as an extrajudicial killing in its annual report on human rights in Yemen, but removed it on request of ambassador Hull after Bush had referred to it as a success during his 2003 State of the Union Address.^[99]

American citizens are typically granted significant legal protections by the US regardless of whether or not they are overseas or part of groups hostile to the country.^[100] At the time, the CIA claimed that it was specifically targeting Harithi in the strike and did not know Derwish, who held US citizenship, was in the vehicle. Officials rejected assertions that his citizenship would make a difference in his killing as he was affiliated with al-Qaeda, and was thus an enemy combatant.^[60] National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, maintained that the strike did not contradict the American constitution.^[101] In December, anonymous officials further elaborated on the presidential finding, stating that it did not differentiate between Americans associated with al-Qaeda and non-Americans. Therefore, because Derwish was fighting alongside an enemy combatant, his constitutional rights could effectively be voided.^[62] The decision to kill an American in this situation would depend on whether or not the individual was deemed to be actively posing a terrorist threat to the US or its interests.^[102] Regarding the legality of killing Derwish, CBS Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen said:

This is legal because the President and his lawyers say so -- it's not much more complicated than that. Congress has no great political incentive to tie the hands of the White House in going after these sorts of adversaries. And the federal courts won't get involved unless and until someone challenges the practice -- and that's not likely given how these things typically play out.^[62]

The strike was viewed by the international community as not occurring within a legally defined battlefield, where actions would be governed by the law of war and international humanitarian law. The Bush administration sought to portray the strike as part of "an armed conflict against Al Qaida" and the target an enemy combatant due to Harithi's involvement in the USS Cole bombing,^[83] but at the same time they classified the war on terror as neither type of recognized armed conflict: an international conflict between sovereign states or a non-international conflict, which referred to state's fighting insurgencies or civil wars within their own territory. Due to this, the strike was viewed as taking place in a nation which was considered to be at peace with the US, thus invoking international human rights law, which was the lens through which critics of the strike viewed it.^[103]

Sweden's foreign minister, Anna Lindh, called the strike a summary execution, arguing that "even terrorists must be treated according to international law. Otherwise any country can start executing those whom they consider terrorists".^[82] In a letter directed to Bush, Amnesty International stated "if this was the deliberate killing of suspects in lieu of arrest in circumstances in which they did not pose an immediate threat, the killings would be extrajudicial executions in violation of international human rights law," urging his administration to condemn the practice and hold those involved responsible.^[80] Human Rights Watch initially viewed the strike as legitimate, considering Harithi's status as a combatant to be valid and factoring in the lack of law enforcement in the ungoverned region which could apprehend him. However, it later wrote in its year-end report that it could set a precedent for a "huge loophole in due process protections worldwide" if the US could single-handedly determine who is a combatant and then act on it.^[57] Charles Allen, deputy general counsel of the Department of Defense, rejected these criticisms by claiming the strike to be an act of self-defense and consistent with the law of war. He further said that the US was not obliged to tell the militants to surrender before they launched the strike as it was a "lawful military target."^[76]

On November 15, 2002, Asma Jahangir, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, issued her opinion on the strike in a message to the US and Yemen, stating that it "constitutes a clear case of extrajudicial killing," violated international human rights and humanitarian law, and could potentially normalize the practice so long as the host country consents to it.^[104] Yemen responded to the UN first, explaining that the individuals killed in the strike were being pursued by authorities for terrorist activities, and were previously sought out for arrest multiple times but escaped.^[104][79]

The US government disregarded the concern from the UN.^[105] The State Department responded in April 2003, expressing neutrality on the findings but criticizing the consideration of the strike as extrajudicial in the first place, claiming that it had occurred in the context of an armed conflict and thus, by considering al-Qaeda to be a participant, "enemy combatants may be attacked unless they have surrendered or are otherwise rendered hors de combat". The statement asserted that the strike was not within the UN Human Rights Council or the special rapporteur's jurisdiction.^[104] Based on this outlook, al-Qaeda members were theoretically "combatants who are susceptible to direct attack at all times" according to American University Washington College of Law professor Robert K. Goldman.^[98] A report by Amnesty International questioned this defense and the relevance of the law of war in the strike's context, noting that the US (a state-actor) could not legally be considered to be at war with al-Qaeda (a non-state actor) or Yemen, nor could Yemen be considered as being at war with al-Qaeda and the US be a supporting combatant. The report reiterates the organization's view that the individuals should have been genuinely pursued for capture by the US and Yemen before being killed.^[106]

According to Micah Zenko, the strike had one military objective: the death of Harithi, along with two larger political objectives; the demoralization of al-Qaeda which would ward off future terrorist attacks against the US and its allies, and "to compel more consistent counterterrorism cooperation from Yemen." Militarily, the strike succeeded. However, although some signals intelligence reports that al-Qaeda was shocked by the strike initially, the group still perpetrated numerous attacks throughout the decade, and the death of Harithi likely did not affect planning for any attacks as he had spent most of his time up until that point evading the search for him. Although the Yemeni government cracked down on local support for al-Qaeda in some regards, intelligence cooperation remained inconsistent, and elements of the nation's security security forces remained sympathetic to the group, and had helped perpetrate a prison break in 2006 which freed several of its members. By 2009, the al-Qaeda presence in Yemen had become largest terrorist threat to the US across across the Middle East.^[107]

Despite this, officials within the Bush administration and the military were highly supportive of the strike, including Bush himself, and its success after the fact was "widely noted" internally.^[108][81] Prior to it, the only other drone strikes conducted by the US were within the war in Afghanistan; though they were widely regarded as military actions rather than targeted killings. Therefore, the decision to launch the strike in Yemen made it the first operation to be conducted against al-Qaeda outside of Afghanistan and in a country which was not an active battlefield.^[109][105] The death of Derwish was also the first instance of a American citizen being killed by the US during the war on terror.^[57] Retrospectively, commentators have labeled the strike "momentous" and "a seminal moment in the war on terror" for these reasons.^[51][80] Targeted killing would come to be recognized by the US as a central means of counterterrorism,^[48] with the State Department eventually ending its criticisms of Israel for the practice.^[51] By the time of the presidency of Barack Obama, targeted killing through drone strikes had been expanded and normalized as a strategy into a campaign encompassing Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.^[105][48] The Obama administration used the death of Derwish as a precedent for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a fellow Yemeni-American jihadist assassinated by a CIA drone in 2011.^[80]

After the political embarrassment experienced following the strike, the Yemeni government banned the US from flying Predators over the country's airspace from 2002 onwards.^[110] The ban was maintained by Saleh out of spite for as long as Bush remained in office.^[66] US military action was again permitted by Yemen in 2009,^[110] while drones again began flying over the country in 2011 as Saleh's control weakened amid the Yemeni revolution.^[91] Learning from leak, the political repercussions and the legal implications which followed it, both the Bush and Obama administration's shrouded the rest of their drone campaign's in secrecy:^[81][68] an official discussion on the subject would not be held until 2013.^[111]

More generally, the strike contributed towards the normalization of targeted killing in the view of the Western world, which allowed the US and its allies to eventually endorse the tactic without even having to offer a legal explanation for it, such as with the killing of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, and Israel's assassination of Hassan Nasrallah.^[105]

• Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration
• United States–Yemen relations
• 2009 Baraawe raid

• Scahill, Jeremy (2013). Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield. Nation Books. pp. 107–112. ISBN 9781568587271.
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