DNA Test: US Ambush in Yemen Didn’t Kill al-Qaeda Bombmaker

Unclear Who the Slain Actually Were

Early last week, US officials began hyping the potential killing of alleged al-Qaeda bombmaking mastermind Ibrahim al-Asiri, who they identified as having been killed in an ambush by US ground troops in Yemen.

At the time, they claimed a sniffer dog was brought in and positively identified one of the corpses as that of Asiri, but Yemen has finally gotten around to conducting an actual DNA test, and the results show it’s not Asiri.

Yemen apparently sent the DNA to Saudi Arabia, where they had the DNA on file of Ibrahim’s brother, who died in a suicide bomb attack. There was no match between the two, however.

Officials say they were unable to get a DNA confirmation of either Asiri or Nasser al-Wuhayshi from any of the scores of slain “suspects” from the US attacks, a disappointment for them. Completely ignored in this is the fact that the US killed those scores of people on the assumption Asiri was one of them, and not a single one has ever been identified.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.