American mercenaries hired by UAE to kill in Yemen | BBC News

I'm going to go fight in the global war on terrorism. I'm going to go after bad people, evil people, when I have the chance to put an end to evil in this world. I love it, sorry, I love hunting down the bad guys and taking them out by driving from the base. In a city there is a strange mixture of excitement, fear and also a strange serenity. We wanted to make a statement, hence the choice to use a detonator and a bomb. You have Al-Qaeda on every corner as soon as the vehicle stops and the doors open. and it's show time, would you say it was a successful operation?

Yes, Yemen's armed factions have an impact across the Middle East and beyond. More recently, as the Houi rebel group attacks ships in the Red Sea, the US military launched another airstrike in Yemen, with the US and UK hitting around 30 sites across Yemen. This film is about the complex roles that Western and regional powers have played in the Yemen war. The story begins with an assassination mission. Isaac Gilmore is a former Navy SEAL who later became second in command of a private US military company called Operations Group Spar yes I want to be pretty too when I first met him in 2020 human rights lawyers They were trying to prosecute Spear for war crimes this is the first time someone from Spar has spoken on camera one of the reasons why I agreed to participate in this and be part of this documentary is to be very clear about what we are doing and why that this is not innocent until proven guilty, it is war, that is why you have intelligence and then you act accordingly in December 2015, spare group. was contracted by the UAE to carry out assassinations in Yemen we met with the appropriate bodies within the UAE government at the Amirat army base the argument was to pressure Isis and al-Qaeda in the state of Yemen and make sure they didn't.

It became another chaotic center of terrorist activity, especially with proximity to the Horn of Africa in 2015. Yemen was affected by fighting on several fronts. A rebel group called the Houthis had taken over the capital. They also briefly held Aiden against a United Arab Emirates coalition. Backed by the United States and the United Kingdom, they recovered the city. Al-Qaeda had long been present in the south and was now gaining territory that the United States feared could plot terrorist operations. Beyond Yemen's borders, the United Arab Emirates took charge of southern Yemen's security and became the main US group.

Allied Counterterrorism in the region How much did they offer you for this operation? 1.5 million per month. The next step was recruiting guys, not everyone would be comfortable doing something that was essentially in the gray area and we had to find the right people. with the right mindset ready 3 2 1 execute Dale comto spent decades in the US Special Forces before becoming a mercenary well three collapse on us now runs combat training courses for civilians Did you enjoy your time in Yemen? Honestly, no, why would anyone want to? do something there, I mean, you've been there, it's fucking hell, but we weren't there to go to Club Med, you know, we had a job to do and that's exactly what soldiers put up with, look there.

You know, as I do with Al-Qaeda everywhere. I have had Al-Qaeda inches away from me. Everything we did, we made sure we did the right thing if we were going to target someone who was on this list. We made sure in our minds that we're not going to go out and murder someone because this guy doesn't like that guy, we would do our own due diligence, we would do our own background checks on the guys and if we felt like yes, that's fine. he is a legitimate target, we are ready, who gave him the targets, we received the intelligence information from the AU government, the initial operation was the target, leader of Alisa, Alisa is the Yi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood because Ana fled from Yen after the attack and is now alive. in exile in May in particular, what made you decide that he is a terrorist?

Well, there are a couple of things, one that we already know, which was being funded by the Muslim Brotherhood and I can put it all together, but the Muslim brotherhoods. Aren't they a terrorist organization? Yes they are. The United States government does not believe the Muslim Brotherhood are terrorists. They did it in a moment. They did it. Yes they did it. If my handlers say here's the intelligence, this is the goal and this. Why who am I to ask? I am a soldier for you. Understood, and your handlers are the United Arab Emirates, yes, they are the client, yes, they are the client.

Ana's party, Al Islam or the Reform Party, is one of the largest political organizations in Yemen. Her policies are inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, a popular international Islamist movement. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, where its political activism and support for elections is considered a threat to the Royal Family's rule, but the United States has never done so. classified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization hey, how are you? The legal action group Pardon has been tracking

kill

ings in southern Yemen. What you see here are basically dozens and dozens of murders between 2015 and 2018.

They have counted 102. They have all followed the same thing. pattern of placing IED bombs in doors or cars and then someone comes behind and starts shooting the individual, if you see, here you see an increase in murders that are happening throughout 2016, this happens after Spears arrived in Yemen . 25 of these assassinations took place during the months Isaac spent in Yemen, how many targets did he execute? Unanswered in early 2016, Dale and Isaac's time with the spear was coming to an end, but the

kill

ings continued, it wasn't until 2018 that we started pointing out that this is actually part of a systematic targeting policy, we have this chaotic situation where everyone can name anyone as a terrorist and start hunting them down.

These are extrajudicial executions. We have seen documents that appear to show that the replacement group continued to receive payments from the United Arab Emirates until 2020. A senior Yemeni army officer. Aiden's, who worked directly with the United Arab Emirates, tells us what Spear was doing in the operation group. After months of trying, I managed to get a death list from the United Arab Emirates, it's from 2018 and it's 7 pages long. It was leaked by a source who was working with the United Arab Emirates. MRE and was horrified by the names he saw on the list. Includes this woman, Hudel Sarari.

It is now my great honor to announce this year's Lou Who, a lawyer who was in Geneva to receive an award for her work investigating human rights abuses in the United Arab Emirates. in Yemen in the end it was not Huda who was attacked but her son because after a month in intensive care M died at the age of 18, witnesses told the prosecutor that they recognized the gunman as a member of an anti-terrorist unit financed by the United Arab Emirates, but no one was charged Huda now lives in exile she still fears for her life US mercenary laws are unclear and to date Spear has not been prosecuted for his role in the UAE assassination program I went to meet Isaac again, did you fancy the operation? you participated was legal yes it is because there was a kind of no from Washington it is not because we were in line with the US mission in the region and we were participating with a US ally one thing that we discussed Last time it's the Kill list one of the names that was on the list that I have seen is Huda Sarari, who is a human rights lawyer.

She's not on my list, so the list you have is a little different. I would absolutely remember him if that name was on the list. Did you know that after leaving the mrti forces that you trained and then trained Yemenis to carry out assassinations, you train people, you give them a tool and how they choose to use it is not really your responsibility, so my personal feelings are unfortunate and the war always is? It's complicated, but every time there's a conflict, there's going to be people hurt or killed that you wish, right?