I'm gonna fight the global war on terror. I'm going after bad people, evil people. When I get a chance to stamp out evil in this world, I love that. Sorry, I love hunting down bad guys and ending them. Driving from the base down into
the city was actually incredibly beautiful. There's this weird mix of excitement,
fear, and also an odd serenity. We wanted to make a statement, hence
the choice to use a detonator and a bomb. I was actually surprised how dark it was. There were no lights. Roads were very tight and congested. You had people sitting on the street drinking chai. You had al-Qaeda on every street corner. As soon as the vehicle stops,
the doors open and it's showtime. We already started taking fire. There's people running. You can see the bullets bouncing off everything. Everybody deployed. I ran around the back and that was it. Would you say that it was a successful operation? Yes. Yemen's armed factions have an impact throughout the Middle East and beyond. Most recently, as the Houthi rebel group attacks ships in the Red Sea. The US military launched another airstrike in Yemen. The US and UK hit around 30 sites across Yemen. This film is about the complex roles Western and regional powers have played in Yemen's war. And the story begins with an assassination mission. Welcome. So that's your mic, are you okay with putting it on? I'm sure I can manage. Okay. I first met Isaac Gilmore in 2020. He's a former Navy SEAL who later became second
in command of a private US military firm called Spear Operations Group. Yeah, me too. I want to be pretty. I was surprised Isaac agreed to speak to me
because at the time, human rights lawyers were trying to prosecute Spear for war crimes. When you make the choice to be involved in things that
matter, you're not going to please everybody. There's plenty of people that would be happy
to say that I was on the wrong side of something. One of the reasons that I agreed to participate
in this and be part of this documentary is to be very clear about what we're doing and why. This isn't, you know, innocent until proven guilty. It's war. And so you have intelligence and
then you make a decision to act on it. Let's start from the beginning. How did you
get involved with the operation in Yemen? So ultimately I met Abraham, Abraham
Golan, who's a brother and a friend. He had an idea for a program and we
sat and we had a glass of whiskey. Once he laid out the concept they had for me, I think
I had about a day's notice to say, you know, "Am I in or am I out?" and hop on a plane to Abu Dhabi. Abraham developed a relationship with Mahmoud Dahlan and that was our path through to the UA government. We met with the appropriate bodies within the UA government at the Officers Club on the Emirati Army Base. The pitch was to put pressure on ISIS
and Al Qaeda in the state of Yemen, and make sure that it didn't become another chaotic hub of terrorist activity, especially with the proximity to the Horn of Africa. So basically, Abraham Golan saw an opportunity in Yemen? He did. The mercenaries' offer was to suppress the threat of al-Qaeda in Yemen. But the terror group was just one element in this complex regional conflict. The first airstrike dropped right over here. Around six to seven minutes later, the second airstrike dropped over here. I'm from Yemen, and for eight years, I've been reporting on its war, which has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. In 2015, Yemen was gripped by fighting on several fronts. a rebel group called the Houthis
had taken over the capital Sanaa. They also briefly held Aden before a Saudi-UAE-led
coalition, backed by the US and the UK, recaptured the city. Al Qaeda had long been a presence in the
south and were now gaining territory. The US feared they might plan terrorist
operations beyond Yemen's borders. The UAE took over security for southern Yemen
and became the US's main counterterrorism ally in the region. That was the circumstances that set the stage
for us to be involved in Yemen in the first place. We had the sign-off, simply a handshake,
and then we had to manage the business side of it and create a structure where we
could receive payment from within the UAE. How much were you offered for this operation? We had a requirement, and the requirement
was $1.5 million per month. The next step The next step was then to recruit guys. Not every guy would be
comfortable with doing something that was essentially somewhere in the gray area. And so we had to
find the right people with the right mentality. Hi, how are you? I'm good.
Can you just show me around? Don't go in there, because that's where
the dogs are, even though they're crated. So this area in here is where we do all the
close quarter battle type training, practice hostage rescue, things like that. Ready, three, two, one, execute. Dale Comstock spent decades in the US Special Forces before becoming a mercenary. All right, three, collapse on us. He now runs combat training courses for civilians. I had clients come in. Basically, I trained them on what
I call Jason Bourne skills. Like I said, it's not a science. It's an art. Did you enjoy your time in Yemen? Um, honestly, no. It was very rough and austere. Why would anybody want to do anything in Yemen? I mean, you've been there. It's a freaking hellhole. But we weren't there to go to Club Med, you know. We had a job to do. And that's just what soldiers do. You suck it up. Look, in Yemen, you know this as I do, Al-Qaeda everywhere. I've had Al-Qaeda within inches of me. Inches of me. Everything that we did, we made sure we did the right thing. If we were going to target somebody that was on this list, then we made sure, in our minds, that we're not going to go out and murder somebody because this guy doesn't like that guy. We would do our own due diligence, do our own background checks on the guys, and if we felt like, yeah, okay, he's a legitimate target, we're good to go. Who gave you the targets? We received the target intelligence from the UA government. How did you receive them? In intelligence packets. Cards. How many cards did you receive? Ten to start. And one of them was Ansaf Mayo? Yes. The initial operation was to go after
the head of the snake, so to speak. And so I was targeting an al-Islah leader. Al-Islah is the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. We were prepared like any other operation. Weapons checks, coordination,
working with the MRD partner force, and then waiting for the intelligence
that he was actually there on site. I was hosting journalists that day. We were chatting about Yemeni music. We discussed this until my driver came. He told me we had to leave. I left the office half an hour
earlier then usual, around 21:40. I arrived home... and I heard an explosion. Moments later, some MPs called me. They asked if I was OK. I didn’t understand. i told them I was fine. It turned out a statement had come out online. It said I’d been killed by a car bomb. That’s how I found out I was the target. I hadn’t realised until then. How did you feel when you found out? I felt fear for my family. Three years later, when the UAE's drone footage was
leaked to the international media, Ansaf found out that Spear had been hired to kill him. What shocked me most is that
they’d sent foreign mercenaries... to kill us in our own country. Why would they want to kill me? What moral and legal justification could there be... to cross the ocean to kill me in Aden? Why? What amI guilty of? Ansaf fled to Yemen after the attack and now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia. On Ansaf Mayo in particular, What was it that made you decide that he is a terrorist? Well, there's a couple of things. One, we already know that he was
being financed by the Muslim Brotherhood, and I can tie it all together. But the Muslim Brotherhood aren't, they're not a terrorist organization. Yeah, they are. The United States government doesn't believe the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. At one point it did. Yes, it did. Ansaf's party, al-Islah, or the Reform Party, is one of the biggest political organisations in Yemen. Its policies are inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, a popular international Islamist movement. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in several countries, including the UAE, where their political activism and support for elections is seen as a threat to the rule of the Royal family. But the U.S. has never classified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. If my handlers say, 'Here's the intelligence, this is the target and this is why,' who am I to question? I'm a soldier for you. Roger that. And your handlers are the UAE? Yeah, they're the client. Yeah, they're the client, you know? If your handlers, the UAE, said they are definitely terrorists, you had to trust that? Yeah, absolutely. That's how it works. The mercenaries will talk about their attempt to kill Ansaf Mayo because their cover was blown, but they're still guarded about the rest of their list. So tell me about one of the other
targets you pursued other than Mayo. I'm not going to mention any names. Yeah. Okay, yeah. So we had another target. This one was kind of interesting. Now this guy was in a walled compound. It was a three-story house, not very big, but three stories. Guys were asleep, but as soon as he started coming in, they heard the gunshots. Everybody got out of the bed. And then we had lights on our guns. They didn't. They just have basically slick AK-47s. And we went in and executed the targets. It was a fair fight, OK? The story of assassinations first came to my attention while I was documenting human rights abuses in Yemen. Hey, how are you? Baraa Shiban is a Yemeni case worker with Reprieve's investigative team. What you see here is basically tens and tens of assassinations. The team has been compiling a list of assassinations in southern Yemen. Between 2015 and 2018, they've counted 102. They've all followed the same pattern,
placing IED bombs on doors or on cars, and then someone comes after and starts shooting the individual. If you see them here, you see a surge in assassinations
that are happening throughout 2016. This happens after the arrival of Spears into Yemen. 25 of these assassinations took place during
the months that Dale and Isaac were in Yemen. Well done, Ahmad Al-Idrisi. They said they assassinated a person with all of his bodyguards. Yeah. This fits in. One of the names on Barra's list is Ahmed Al-Idrissy He was assassinated the day after Spear's attempt on Ansaf Mayo. Ahmed Al-Idrissy had his security detail around him all the time. What we understood is there was an assault that killed him and everyone around him. The details of this assassination match what Dale told us about the target he refused to name. Isaac and Dale told me that they'd made visits to the port because they were surveying someone there. So it fits the description, fits the date. Ahmed Al-Idrissy was a leader of one of the Yemeni forces that helped drive out the Houthis. At the time of his death, his group had control of the port in Aden and refused to hand it over to the UAE-backed forces. Aden's port is a key strategic asset. UAE-backed forces took it over immediately after Idrissy’s assassination. Were you involved in the assassination of Ahmed Al-Idrissy which happened on the 31st of December, 2015? No. Reprieve was one of two human rights organisations that investigated the assassination. Both told us they now believe Spear were behind it. As to other sources, how many targets were you given? Over 40. And how many targets did you execute? Not answering. By early 2016, Dale and Isaac's time
with Spear was coming to an end. I left Spear and came back to the US. Do you know if Spear is still active now in Yemen? No, I can't say for sure because I'm not involved. We asked the US Department of Defense and the State Department to talk to us about Spear, but they declined. Throughout 2016, assassinations continued
to dominate the local news in Aden. Hundreds of victims: politicians, cultural figures,
preachers, teachers, activists. At the beginning, when those assassinations
were carried out, people kept saying this is operations done by ISIS and so on. It was not until 2018 when we started to
pinpoint that actually this is part of a systematic targeting policy aiming towards officials,
some parliament members and imams. When you don't have a unified definition
about who's a terrorist, you have this chaotic situation where everyone can name anyone
a terrorist and start going after them. These are extrajudicial killings and the most
important thing is that it's still happening until today. So after we started to look closely into evidence of… Reprieve has obtained what they believe is a
financial statement from the UAE's foreign ministry. It states how money described as
aid for Yemen has really been spent. It shows here quarterly payments
being paid to Spear Operations Group. This is the amount in Saudi rials. This comes to close to $17 million. We know that Spear were there in 2015. This is 2020. What have they been doing there for the last five years? I think that's the main question. What were they doing? To answer that, you'd need to have been
inside the UAE bases in Yemen where Spear operated. I found a whistleblower who was there. We were working with the Emiratis. We saw a group of foreigners in the camp. They were called Spear Operations. This man is a senior Yemeni officer from Aden We were working with the Emiratis.
who worked directly with the UAE. He's asked us to conceal his identity. Spear Operations Group started
by carrying out direct targeting. Later they began training. They were training Emirati officers, who in turn trained local Yemnis
to do the targeting. I asked Spear's founder, Abraham Golan, whether his mercenaries had trained
Emiratis in assassination techniques, but he didn't respond. After they began training locals, did the assassinations in Aden increase? Absolutely. The number massively increased. In 2017, the UAE set up the Southern
Transitional Council, or STC, in Yemen. One of its roles was to run security in the south. Its forces included an elite counter-terrorism unit. I met the head of the STC, Aideroos Al Zubaydi He is one of the most powerful figures
in Yemen's government and works closely with the UAE. The UAE entered the Arab coalition as an ally, to combat terrorism and to fight the Houthis. Without the UAE, Aden
wouldn’t have been liberated. What do you know about a group naned Spear? Is it an organisation? it’s a group of mercenaries, funded by the UAE,
who worked in Yemen. They tried to assassinate Ansaf Mayo. I honestly don't know that company But you are in charge of the security
situation in Aden and in the South. Dozens of assassinations have taken place in the south.
Who’s responsible? Who are they? Ansaf Mayo dosen’t even
have have a scratch on him. Dozens of Al-Islah members have been
assassinated since 2015. You’re suggesting the UAE was targeting them.
That’s not true. So the anti-terrorism group had nothing
to do with the assassinations? My God, watch what you’re saying Off camera, Zubaydi's media advisor intervened. Are we done with this topic? Take it easy. Zubaydi denies that the UAE is sponsoring assassinations of its political enemies in Yemen. But after months of trying, I've managed to obtain a UAE kill list. It's from 2018 and is seven pages long. It was leaked by a source who was working with the Emiratis and was horrified by the names he saw on the list. It includes this woman, Huda Al-Sarari. Huda. You made it. Before the war, my life was ordinary. I was Huda the lawyer, working for
the Yememi Women's Union. It is now my great honor... to announce this year's laureate... of Martin Ennals Award. Huda is in Geneva to receive an award for her work investigating the UAE's human rights abuses in Yemen. Miss Huda Al-Sarari. Ladies and gentlemen, After Aden was liberated from the Houthis, we hoped the UAE would
support law and order. What happened is the exact opposite. We felt the danger rise as the
assassinations increased. Everyone felt threatened. We started to collect testimonies, documents. I spoke out on local TV. I received a lot of death threats. In the end, it wasn't Huda who was attacked. It was her son. I've seen first-hand the actions of
the UAE and its militias. Believe me, I'm a mother who’s lost her son. I’d like to dedicate this award
to the memory of my son, Mohsen, who always supported me.
I loved him with all my heart. I’d like to dedicate this award
to the memory of my son, Mohsen, He used to make us laugh a lot at home. He’s singing True Love. He was so funny, that's why
everyone loved him,. All his funny movies and stuff. That day, I was at home. Mohsen went out with a group of friends. He was shot and wounded. Mohsen was shot from the front. It wasn't stray bullets or crossfire. It seemed deliberate. After a month in intensive care, Mohsen died. He was 18. Eyewitnesses told the prosecutor that
they recognised the gunman as a member of a counter-terrorism
unit funded by the UAE. But nobody was charged. After his death, I spent a long
time at home, grieving. After I went back to work,
I started receiving threats again. “Haven’t you had enough?” “Does your other son need to be killed for you to back down?” After that, I left Aden. Who do you think was responsible for killing your son? Those responsible for killing
Mohsen, and many other young men, are those who were in charge
of our security at the time: the UAE. Huda now lives in exile. She's still in fear of her life. I want to show you a document we were given. Those who leaked it said it’s a list
of people to be targeted... because they’re terrorists in Yemen. Looking at this document,
the names and pictures aren't clear. Our main goal is to combat and
completely eradicate terrorism. We won't tolerate any terrorist,
we won't back down, and we'll take them to be tried in court. In this list there’s a woman named Huda al-Sarari. Her son was assassinated in Aden. 10,000 people have been martyred
in the war against the Houthis. Are you investigating the
assassination of her son? We have courts and a public prosecutor
for these terrorist crimes. These terrorists are known to us.
They’re known. The Yemeni officer who witnessed the
UAE's counter-terrorism operations had a further allegation about the men hired to kill. Unfortunately, they recruited many
Al-Qaeda members. So instead of targeting Al-Qaeda members, they used Al-Qaeda members,
to carry out the assassinations? That’s right. Al-Qaeda members were actually used to
carry out the assassinations of resistance leaders, imams
and preachers. The whistleblower just sent me this
document that has a list of names. These are all guys that worked
with ISIS or Al-Qaeda in Yemen. He said most of the 11 men on the list
had been serving sentences for terrorism. We were unable to verify all of them,
but further evidence has emerged. This is a transcript of the conversation. He says: “I took several souls”, meaning the number of people he killed. Huda is sharing court documents with Baraa from Reprieve that have just been leaked from Yemen. A prosecutor's interview with an al-Qaeda member accused of assassinating imams, reveals how the deals were made. “I was working with Al-Qaeda, carrying out executions.”
You can find this on pages one and two. It was the Emiratis who actually
recruited him, right? Yes, he says the Emiratis and
the coalition were there. The Al-Qaeda member says UAE officers
came to him in prison with a deal: freedom in exchange for carrying out assassinations. "It's as if they were threatening us…" As if they knew he’d worked with Al-Qaeda
and committed terrorist acts. “So come and work with us and we’ll
erase your past.” “The upcoming work will be
to eliminate mosque imams.” He said: “I told him I agreed. They told me to
extend my hand. We shook on it and made up.” Despite confessing that he'd taken the deal and killed several Imams, the suspect was never prosecuted. And they claim that they’re fighting terrorism. Even the judiciary and security services
can’t work in this environment. Because of all the assassinations? Because of all the assassinations. Their own lives could be in danger. This is Nasser Al-Shibah. Once a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative, he was jailed for terrorism but later released. A Yemeni government minister who investigated the case told us Shibah was a known suspect in the attack on the USS Cole which killed 17 American sailors. Despite this, the UAE recruited him to command
one of the military units they're backing. He's pictured here with the head of the STC. Some accuse the STC of
working with individuals who were affiliated with Al-Qaeda
and ISIS. Is this true? We’re fighting terrorism, so it’s impossible
we’d be working with them. Do you know who this person is
that you're pictured with? This person is known to us. His name is Nasser Al-Shibah. Yes, Nasser Al-Shibah. We don't have any evidence he's
linked to Al-Qaeda or ISIS. If we did, he’d be arrested immediately. This person was involved in the bombing of the USS Cole, the American warship. All it would take is a note from the American embassy that this person was involved, and we’d go get him. Whether he's inside or outside Yemen. What does he do now? He’s a citizen. He doesn’t work. We received information that he has
an active role in the STC, and that he's the head of a unit there.
Is this true or not? Not true. This person came and took a picture
with me, like any southern citizen. There’s no problem here. Multiple sources have confirmed Shibah is working with the UAE. The Yemeni government minister who'd investigated the case told us he had informed the US authorities of Shibah’s suspected involvement in al-Qaeda's
attack on the USS Cole and his current role. We put our evidence to the US State Department and the Department of Defense, who declined to comment. Peace is still out of reach in Yemen. The Houthis maintain their grip on the north of the country. Their attacks on Red Sea shipping, which
they say are to support the Palestinians in Gaza, have broadened the conflict. The UAE continues to control the security apparatus in the south. Despite the evidence that the UAE is pursuing
its own agenda, undermining stability and making it harder for the Yemeni government
to return, the UAE is still a key ally for the USA. The UAE tried to position itself as the main
counterterrorism ally for the United States in the region. Everything was under this umbrella of counterterrorism, but what it did, it created paramilitary groups
and militias to go after their opponents. That basically undermines the main counterterrorism strategy. We need to be asking a lot of questions, and especially about this company that
was registered in the United States. What did the United States know about this? What did the CIA know about this program? Did they actually sign off on some of those members to go and carry out assassinations in South Yemen? I think all of those questions are legitimate questions. We have to be asking them, and I think the American people need to be asking them. We put a series of questions about
Spear Operations Group to the CIA. A spokesman said, "The idea that the
CIA signed off on such activity is false." US laws covering mercenary activity are unclear. No one from Spear has been prosecuted. I'm sorry, this is the me you're getting. Okay, so I guess, you know, the last time we met was how long ago? Three years ago? Yes, February of 2020. You know, did you feel like the operation
you took part in was legal? Yes. Is that because there was some sort
of nod from Washington? No, it's because we were in line with
the US's mission in the region and we were participating with an ally of the US. Did you know that after you left, the Emirati forces that you trained then trained Yemenis to conduct assassinations? You train people, you give people a tool, and how they choose to use it is not,
really not your responsibility. So, my personal feelings is unfortunate, And war is always fucking messy. But anytime there's conflict, there's going to be people that are hurt or killed that you wish weren't. So the UAE is working with, arming and funding key members of al-Qaeda that are U.S--
- No. Yes, now. Some of the people who actually conducted some of these assassinations
were former AQ members. It's not really surprising. The realities of the world is people
change sides, become useful tools. Sometimes somebody's power and
gravitas is worth ignoring the sins of their past because that's what you need to do for a larger objective. One thing we discussed last time is the kill list. One of the names that was on the
list that I've seen is Huda Sarari, who's a female human rights lawyer. Not on my list. So the list you have is something different. I would absolutely remember if that name was on the list. Many of the names if not most of the names are people who have no terrorist connections whatsoever. And again, the list that you received is something very different from the target list that I was looking at. So based on what Intel what was the Intel that
you were provided with about and Ansaf Mayo, that made you think he was connected to terrorist organisations? I cannot go into the details of the Intel. But he isn't a terrorist, is he Isaac? I mean, I've met
him, since he is living in Saudi Arabia he's taken part in the UN peace process for Yemen. The very nature of intelligence gathering
is that it's never 100% absolute. I had one more question for Isaac. Ansaf had told me he wanted to meet him. Would you ever be open to meeting Ansaf Mair? Absolutely. It'd be intriguing. Since the attempt on my life, I’ve been traumatised. My family
has been living in a state of fear. Ansaf is on his way to meet Isaac in London. I want to know what information he had that led him to commit this crime. It's his chance to get answers from the man who tried to kill him. Why was he targeted? And will he ever be safe? After all this time, I hope he’s changed his mind. He must surely realise what he did was wrong. We waited, hoping Isaac would turn up. He's online, but he's not answering my call. Isaac has just sent a message.
Now he's saying he can't come. Even though a few minutes before
his flight, he said he was boarding. I expected him to come. You were the first person they tried to assassinate. What do you say to them? I hold them responsible because they
oversaw the training of these cells. They made them skilled in assassinations.
They bear a heavy responsibility. Most of those targeted are political,
civil and social activists. I challenge them to find a single terrorist
who was assassinated. People in Aden want to know the truth. Justice must be served. To date, Spear have not been prosecuted for their role in the UAE's assassination program. And the families of victims of the assassinations in southern Yemen have yet to receive justice. I still hope that the judicial system will get
back to work and reopen my son’s case, and that the person who shot him will be caught and punished. Huda's still investigating the assassinations, which continue to this day. I have to stay strong for the sake of my children I have to pick myself up and start again. We put the allegations in this film to the government of the UAE. In a statement, it said the allegations were false, that it was untrue that it had targeted individuals with no links to terrorism. It said it supported counter-terrorism operations in Yemen at the invitation of the government of Yemen and its international allies, and has promised to investigate any new allegations. Isaac Gilmore told us circumstances beyond his control prevented him three times from meeting Ansaf Mayo, but that he still hopes to do so.
