Trump sued for details of 8-year-old Yemeni girl’s murder

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the US administration in an effort to release documents about a 29 January raid in Yemen that killed a Navy Seal and 30 Yemeni civilians, a report by The Intercept has revealed.

The raid was the first counter-terrorism mission authorised by President Donald Trump resulted in a firefight with alleged Al-Qaeda fighters. Thirty-six-year-old officer William Ryan Owens was killed in the attack along with 30 civilians, including 10 children under the age of 13 and six women.

ACLU director, Hina Shamsi, said:

We have seen that this White House cannot be trusted to give the public accurate information, which is especially critical when the president authorises military action that kills civilians.

“The administration’s explanations have little credibility, and the documents we seek are essential for public accountability when civilians are killed in the name of our national security.”

Read: Trump’s ‘temporary’ battlefields in Yemen and Somalia

The lawsuit is requesting a US federal court to enforce a Freedom of Information Act request filed in March with the Department of Defence, State and Justice, including the Central Intelligence Agency, to make public documents on the Pentagon’s post-mission assessment of civilian casualties. The Pentagon claimed between four and 12 civilians were killed, but British human rights group Reprieve says it has evidence that 23 civilian deaths occurred, including a new-born and ten children.

Nawar, the eight-year-old daughter of US-born cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, was also killed in the raid. Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

The Trump administration insists that the raid was a “success”, claiming Al-Qaeda fighters were killed and key documents extracted. But NBC News reported that US officials said that “almost everything went wrong” in the raid and Trump authorised the raid without sufficient intelligence.