CENTCOM: No Yemen Strikes in February 2019

On March 1st, CENTCOM confirmed to New America by email that “CENTCOM did not conduct any strikes in Yemen in February 2019” adding, “Our last strike was January 1, 2019.”

The lack of strikes in February continues - with the exception of a single strike on January 1st - a now five month pause in strikes conducted by CENTCOM in Yemen. The past year saw a slow down in the number of strikes following an unprecedented escalation in 2017, when the United States conducted 131 airstrikes in Yemen. In contrast, in 2018, CENTCOM conducted only 36 strikes.

However, it is far from clear that CENTCOM is the only American actor conducting strikes in Yemen. According to my research published in Just Security and using New America’s data tracking the counterterrorism war in Yemen, there were multiple reported U.S. strikes that CENTCOM denies conducting as well as a November 25th strike, suspected by many to be a U.S. drone strike, in the middle of the period when CENTCOM says it was not conducting strikes. It is not clear if the November 25th strike was a covert U.S. operation or conducted by one of the several other parties to the ongoing conflict in Yemen who now fly drones over its sky.

New America has not identified any such media reports of suspected U.S. drone strikes in Yemen in February. Regardless of who conducted the November 25th strike, the lack of acknowledged or reported U.S. strikes in February 2019 suggests the tempo of the U.S. war is slowing substantially even as it remains difficult to truly assess the extent of U.S. operations in Yemen.