2002 Marib airstrike

On November 3, 2002, a remotely piloted aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched an airstrike on a vehicle travelling through Marib, a governorate in Yemen. The strike killed six militants, including its target Abu Ali al-Harithi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen. The operation was the first drone strike conducted by the United States outside of a conventional battlefield, and the first targeted killing in the war on terror.

Harithi, a high-ranking al-Qaeda member wanted for a role in the USS Cole bombing of 2000, was the subject of a joint manhunt between the US and Yemen after the latter failed to capture him in 2001. On the day of the strike, Harithi's phone signal was intercepted by the National Security Agency (NSA) and his location pinpointed to a farm. The Special Activities Division (SAD) of the CIA routed an MQ-1 Predator to the location, and proceeded to monitor him as he left in a vehicle. After the NSA confirmed Harithi was inside the vehicle, CIA director George Tenet, who was viewing the drone's video feed, ordered an airstrike with direct permission from US Central Command deputy commander Michael DeLong. The Predator proceeded to fire a missile at the vehicle, destroying it and killing six people; one occupant escaped injured. DNA samples verified the deaths of Harithi and four other jihadists, along with a man initially identified as "Ahmed Hijazi", later revealed to be Kamal Derwish, ringleader of the Lackawanna Six and an American citizen. The CIA denied knowledge of his presence in the vehicle. Later reports reveal that it did know, but justified his death due to associating with Harithi.

Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh had agreed to the strike on the basis that it would be kept a secret. However, with the George W. Bush administration seeking to capitalize on a victory in the war on terror amid midterm elections, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz publicly revealed the strike during a CNN interview two days afterwards. The announcement, met with a generally positive response domestically, elicited fury from the Yemeni public over what was perceived as a violation of sovereignty, and anger and embarrassment from Saleh and his government, which proceeded to ban further drone strikes in Yemen.

In the US, domestic legal experts were generally of the belief that the strike was not an assassination, which is illegal under American law, but instead a wartime action against enemy combatants, as claimed by American officials. Many international observers disputed this, decrying the strike as an extrajudicial killing, including United Nations expert Asma Jahangir. Regardless, the strike effectively neutralized the al-Qaeda network in Yemen for several years, although a permanent dissuasion effect on al-Qaeda and increased counterterrorism collaboration with the Yemeni government was not achieved as originally expected. US officials internally noted the strike's success as well as the effects of the leak, heralding the beginning of a covert targeted killing campaign waged by the US against terrorists across multiple nations.