Sana’a: Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has published images of two Australians it says were killed by US drone strikes in Yemen. The fighters were pictured in a 20-minute video released this month by the militant group and identified as Abu Salma Al Australi and Abu Suhaib Al Australi.
The video features two men confessing to giving information to US authorities that was used to assist drone strikes that killed several militants, including a senior AQAP ideologue in January 2015.
Abu Salma Al Australi is a known alias used by Townsville man Christopher Harvard and Abu Suhaib Al Australi is the nom de guerre of Muslim Bin John, formerly Darryl Jones. Both are Australian citizens believed to have been killed in Yemen’s eastern Hadramout province on 19 November 2013 in a Predator drone air strike targeting a convoy of cars.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed the nationality of the two men at the time but their images have not been published until now. Harvard’s stepfather said in June 2014 his stepson arrived in Yemen in 2011 to teach English and had his passport cancelled, “so he had to stay”.
Freedom of information documents obtained by the ABC show the duo were believed to have been involved in kidnapping Europeans for ransom. The pair are believed to be the first Australians killed under the controversial American drone strike programme in Yemen. John was also a New Zealand citizen.
Neither Australian nor New Zealand authorities were believed to have been informed about the strike until after it took place.
Since April 2015 AQAP has been seizing population centres in Yemen, including Al Mukallah in the Hadramout province, taking advantage of the country’s two-year old civil war.
