Battle of Lawdar (2010)

On 19 August 2010, gunmen from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) attacked a group of soldiers at a market in Lawdar, a city in Abyan Governorate. The next day, an ambush perpetrated by the group on a convoy of soldiers in the city left 11 dead. In response to the attacks, the Yemeni Armed Forces besieged the city on 21 August and announced an imminent offensive commander by defense minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, urging the militants and civilians to leave. Intense clashes broke out at the night of 22 August between AQAP militants and Yemeni Army after the ultimatum expired.

By 23 August, AQAP was believed to be withdrawing most of its forces from Lawdar. The next day, the Yemeni government declared that the military had secured the city. According to Agence-France Presse, 11 soldiers and 19 militants were killed during the conflict from 20 August onwards, while three civilians were also killed. Commentators noted that the operation was the first large-scale military confrontation between the Yemeni government and AQAP.

In 2009, the Yemeni government began to intensify its counterterrorism campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) under pressure from regional powers in the Arab world as well as the United States. Prior to the battle, security forces were primarily engaged in "targeted attacks and small-scale operations against al Qaeda leaders."^[4] Previously in similar instances, the government utilized mediation to avoid direct, large-scale conflict with the group.^[6]

AQAP's area of operations are concentrated in southern Yemen, particularly Abyan Governorate.^[7] The group's attacks on security forces had intensified since June 2010, when it declared open war on the Yemeni state.^[6] In Abyan, assassinations and grenade attacks had increased in the two months prior to the offensive.^[4]

The conflict was instigated by an AQAP ambush on Yemeni soldiers in Lawdar on 19 August.^[6] During that attack, AQAP gunmen encountered a small group of soldiers in a crowded souk. Witness accounts described the soldiers surrendering their weapons and pleading to the militants before they opened fire. At least two soldiers were killed in the shooting.^[3] The army sent additional units into Lawdar in response, leading to a two hour long gun battle in which another two soldiers were wounded before the militants fled.^[8]

On 20 August, at least 11 soldiers from the Central Security Forces^[2] (CSF) were killed in an ambush utilizing rocket-propelled grenades perpetrated by AQAP along with "outlaws cooperating with them." The army retaliated by bombarding the buildings from which they were attacked near the marketplace, killing three civilians and wounding four.^[9] Seven AQAP militants, including three foreign fighters of unspecified nationalities, were killed according to the government, while three were captured after being wounded and were interrogated. Three militants who escaped the fighting were identified as Ahmed Mohammed Abdu Daradish, Abdel Rauf Abdullah Mohammed Nassib and Jalal Saleh Mohammed Saidi.^[7]

In response to the attacks, the government sent hundreds of soldiers to besiege Lawdar by the afternoon of the same day.^[6][3] An operation to drive out the AQAP presence in certain parts of the town was directly overseen by defense minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed. Army reinforcements took positions at the entrances of Lawdar throughout the night of 21 August into 22 August, when pamphlets were distributed to civilians urging them to leave as security forces prepared to move in and launch raids on homes believed to be AQAP safehouses.^[7] Security officials believed there were up to 200 AQAP fighters in Lawdar, along with another 200 from the Southern Movement, a secular secessionist coalition which the government alleged were fighting alongside AQAP. These claims were denied by the Southern Movement.^[4]

An ultimatum for all militants in Lawdar to surrender was issued by authorities at 3:00 a.m. local time and expired the same day at 3:00 p.m. on 22 August.^[10] By that point, the army claimed that most civilians had left Lawdar and those who remained were AQAP militants, some of whom were suspected to be Saudi and Pakistani foreign fighters.^[11] Clashes began at 5:00 p.m. as army soldiers raided a home belonging to a local AQAP commander, killing three members of the group. Two other militants were killed as they attempted an RPG attack on the local CSF headquarters.^[7][2] Army forces raided several other barricaded houses, where they found large stashes of heavy weaponry including rockets and anti-tank weapons.^[11] Intense clashes continued to take place overnight.^[12][11]

After clashes earlier in the day had left four of their fighters dead, AQAP transported their wounded out of Lawdar and began withdrawing from the town on 23 August.^[11] By the afternoon of 24 August, Yemeni officials reported that the army had entered Lawdar and had retaken control over most of the city.^[13] By late noon, the government declared full control over Lawdar, with deputy interior minister Saleh al-Zaweri stating that security forces were "chasing the runaway elements".^[1]

An Agence France-Presse tally based on official and medical sources placed the total death count since 20 August at 33 people, them being 11 soldiers, 19 militants and three civilians. Government sources instead reported the deaths of 12 militants, all of them Yemenis. Among the militant casualties included Adel Saleh Hardaba, a 27-year-old AQAP member believed to be the group's second-in-command for Lawdar.^[1] According to Ellen Knickmeyer of GlobalPost, the main AQAP force managed to escape Lawdar.^[3]

Of the population of nearly 80,000 in Lawdar and the surrounding areas, a reported 3,000 people left their homes due to the fighting.^[4][5] Residents were displaced from their homes for three days before being allowed to return.^[14] Human Rights Watch associate Letta Tayler cites local sources reporting hundreds of homes being damaged in the assault.^[5] News Yemen reported that most shops in the town were closed down due to the fighting, and many did not attend Tarawih prayers at the local mosque as is tradition for Muslims during Ramadan.^[15]

The Southern Movement acknowledged it had a presence in Lawdar, but denied the accusations that its members were fighting alongside AQAP and claimed that they were only involved in "peaceful struggle".^[12] Ali Salem al-Beidh, a prominent separatist leader and former president of South Yemen, said the operation had targeted the Southern Movement and only used the pretext of fighting AQAP as a smokescreen, calling it "an excuse (by Sanaa) to gain international support... and trying to gather international aid from countries fighting terror." He reiterated the Southern Movement's opposition to AQAP and called on "the Arab League and the United Nations to immediately intervene to investigate the Sanaa regime's claims and violations."^[16]

On 23 September, an estimated 8,000 people, many of them armed, took part in a Southern Movement demonstration in Lawdar in defiance of the army.^[17]

Ali Dahmas, a local leader of the Joint Meeting Parties coalition, said a large-scale operation was unnecessary to neutralize the AQAP threat in Lawdar as the perpetrators of the original ambush could have been easily arrested by a small contingent of soldiers. He also criticized shelling of civilian homes during the operation and said that it had further inflamed tensions in the area.^[15]

Lebanese journalist Abdul Wahab Badrakhan suggested Lawdar's strategic significance amounted to it being a crossroads for AQAP members travelling through Abyan, Shabwah and Marib governorates, but also for it allegedly being the site of burgeoning cooperation between AQAP and the Southern Movement, which the government sought to neutralize before it grew to a further extent. He also claimed that the offensive was meant to showcase the government's dedication to counterterrorism to its foreign funders.^[18]

Observers regarded the battle as the first major military confrontation between AQAP and the Yemeni government. It was noted that previous RPG ambushes and assassinations perpetrated by AQAP did not elicit such a strong response from the government. Intelligence firm Stratfor questioned whether the government had already intended for an operation in Lawdar prior to the 19–20 August killings, and that the latter had "provided the military with the impetus to attack."^[6]

A similar military operation took place in the town al-Hawtah in Shabwah during September, involving a siege to neutralize AQAP elements and the launching of artillery shelling and airstrikes, along with significant civilian displacement. Despite their operation success, the majority of AQAP forces had managed to escape from Lawdar and al-Hawtah into the countryside,^[19][20] including the primary targets of the sieges which rendered both of them failures according to investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill.^[21] Der Spiegel said the US intelligence community believed the two operations were a "sham."^[20] The Sunday Times wrote:

One of the biggest problems for the US when it comes to Yemen is encapsulated in the story of the Lodar siege: few people appear to know what exactly is going on there or who al-Qaeda really are – an intelligence gap that carries huge risks for operations against them.^[22]

In a 2013 report reflecting on the history of al-Qaeda in Yemen, W. Andrew Terrill of the Strategic Studies Institute regarded the battle as a notable event in AQAP's development into an insurgent force rather strictly a terrorist organization. According to him, the fact that AQAP did not immediately retreat from Lawdar during the operation "indicated a level of commitment to their cause, as well as perhaps some degree of contempt for the quality of Yemeni military forces." He attributed low militant casualties in the battle to reluctance from AQAP in dedicating significant resources to hold Lawdar.^[23]

• Battle of Lawdar (2012)