Iona Craig, Death in Al Ghayil: Women and Children in This Yemeni Village Recall the Horror of Trump’s ‘Highly Successful’ SEAL Raid, The Intercept, Thursday, 9 March 2017. “On January 29 [2017], 5-year-old Sinan al Ameri was asleep with his mother, his aunt, and 12 other children in a one-room stone hut typical of poor rural villages in the highlands of Yemen. A little after 1 a.m., the women and children awoke to the sound of a gunfight erupting a few hundred feet away. Roughly 30 members of Navy SEAL Team 6 were storming the eastern hillside of the remote settlement [the village of al Ghayil, ‘part of a cluster of settlements known as Yakla in the Qayfa tribal region of Yemen’s al Bayda province]…. According to White House press secretary Sean Spicer, the al Ghayil raid ‘was a very, very well thought out and executed effort,’ planning for which began under the Obama administration back in November 2016. Although Ned Price, former National Security Council spokesperson, and Colin Kahl, the national security adviser under Vice President Biden, challenged Spicer’s account, what is agreed upon is that Trump gave the final green light over dinner at the White House on January 25. According to two people with direct knowledge, the White House did not notify the U.S. ambassador to Yemen in advance of the operation.”
Update: Peter Maass, Iona Craig Won A 2018 George Polk Award for Her Investigation of a SEAL Team Raid That Killed Women and Children in Yemen. Here’s How She Did It. The Intercept, Saturday, 24 February 2018.