Trump's first overseas raid kills 8-year-old girl in Yemen

An eight-year-old girl was killed in Yemen, during President Donald Trump's first clandestine operation after being inaugurated to office on 20 January.
2 min read
01 February, 2017
The eight-year-old girl was shot in the neck by a US seal [Twitter]

Donald Trump's first foreign military raid as US president left an eight year old girl dead this week, in an attack in Yemen that killed dozens, including women and children.

Trump's administration carried out a raid targeting al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - deemed to be the group's most dangerous franchise on Sunday - but killed eight women and eight children along with some militants.

"Almost everything went wrong," an unnamed senior military official told NBC News.

Yemeni sources suggest the US' young victim, Nawar al-Awlaqi was at home with her mother when a US Navy SEAL entered their home and shot the little girl in the neck.

"My granddaughter was staying for a while with her mother, so when the attack came they were sitting in the house and a bullet struck her in her neck at 2:30 past midnight. Other children in the same house were killed," Nasser al-Awlaqi, the girl's grandfather told NBC News.

"They [the SEALs] entered another house and killed everybody in it, including all the women. They burned the house. There is an assumption there was a woman [in the house] from Saudi Arabia who was with al-Qaeda. All we know is that she was a children's teacher."

The eight-year-old is understood to be the third member of her family to be killed by the US.

Nawar was the daughter of slain US citizen of Yemeni descent, Anwar al-Awlaqi, who was himself killed by a US drone strike in 2011 after rising to the leadership ranks of al-Qaeda.

Just two weeks after then President Barack Obama ordered the strike on the al-Qaeda leader, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaqi was struck by another US drone strike.

A US Navy SEALs identified a troop called William Owens who was killed in Trump's first "clandestine" raid following his inauguration as the 45th president of the US.

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