The Pentagon has awkwardly removed a decade old video from its website after trying to pass it off as evidence that President Donald Trump’s first military attack in Yemen was successful.
On Friday, the US military released footage that showed a ski-masked man encouraging people to build bombs, with a US Central Command spokesman touting it as an “example of the volumes of sensitive al-Qaeda terror-planning information recovered during the operation.”
However, the clip was abruptly taken down after experts in terrorist media said it was among a number of videos that were released online some 10 years ago.
“The video clip that was posted and abruptly taken down was one of 25 videos that appeared (published) in 2007,” said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst at SITE group which tracks online activities by extremist groups.
US military officials tried to downplay the blunder by hyping up the Sunday raid in Yemen’s al-Bayda province. The operation was the first offensive authorized by Trump as the new commander in chief.
“It does not matter when the video was made, that they had it is still illustrative of who they are and what their intentions are,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.
CENTCOM spokesman Colonel John Thomas confirmed that the footage was old.
"We didn't want it to appear that we were trying to pass off an old video as a new video," he said.
The January 29 mission killed 14 militants. Washington said a Navy SEAL also lost his life during the attack and three others were injured.
Medics at the scene of the raid said that at least 30 people, including 10 women and children, also died as a result.
At least three US officials confirmed to Reuters earlier this week that the operation was carried out without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup.