2002 Marib airstrike

On 3 November 2002, a CIA-operated MQ-1 Predator drone launched an airstrike on a vehicle travelling on a highway through the al-Naqaa desert of Marib Governorate, Yemen. The strike destroyed the vehicle and killed six suspected 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 Afghanistan.

Harithi had been wanted for several years by both the Yemeni and American government for involvement in the USS Cole bombing. After Yemeni special forces failed to capture him in a raid in December 2001, the Yemeni government allowed the US to fly surveillance drones over the country to search for his location. A joint US-Yemeni intelligence team had been tracking down Harithi for months prior to the operation. He was pinpointed to a farm in Marib on the day of the strike after the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted the signal of his phone. CIA agents stationed in Djibouti routed a Predator armed with two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles to the location and began monitoring the target before Harithi and a group of companions left in two vehicles. The NSA confirmed that Harithi was in the backseat of one car after hearing him giving directions to the driver. With permission from Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh as well as CIA Director George Tenet and CENTCOM Gen. Michael DeLong, who were viewing the situation through the Predator's video feed, the CIA drone operators fired a missile at the car, destroying it and killing six of its seven occupants, including Harithi.

The strike was consistent with the Bush Doctrine, which commits to preemptive strikes against terrorist targets. It was the first instance of a drone killing an American citizen as authorities later found that Kamal Derwish, ringleader of the Lackawanna Six, had died in the vehicle alongside Harithi. The CIA initially maintained that it did not know Derwish was in the vehicle, but an official later claimed in 2009 that it did know but justified his death as "collateral damage". American and Yemeni officials remained silent on the operation until it was confirmed by a US State Department official days later, angering the Yemeni government which intended to hide its cooperation with the US in order to avoid criticism. The operation prompted discussion over the strategic and legal implications of the US attacking terrorist targets in countries considered at peace with it, and killing American citizens deemed terrorists. It also lead to discussion over the American government adopting the tactic of targeted killing.