The video clips released by the U.S. military on Friday as proof of the intelligence collected during the Yemen raid have been taken down after reports surfaced that they had actually been online for about a decade.
The clips, which are excerpts from longer videos, were released by the U.S. Central Command to show that the raid against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which took the life of a U.S. Navy SEAL, successfully accomplished its objective of retrieving “actionable intelligence” to thwart further attacks by the al Qaeda-linked group.
“The videos are one example of the volumes of sensitive al Qaeda terror-planning information recovered during the operation,” said Col. John Thomas, Central Command spokesman, in a statement accompanying the release.
“What was captured from the site has already afforded insights into al Qaeda leadership, AQAP methods of exporting terror, and how they communicate.”
But multiple reports said that the videos were actually posted online in their entirety as far back as 2007. The Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System took the video clips down just hours after sending them out with a press release.
Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the videos were still collected in the raid and that when they were made is of little importance.
“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,” Davis said.
U.S. Central Command did not return a request for comment about why the videos were taken down.
One of the excerpts from five separate videos shows the process for making Triacetone Triperoxide, an explosive the U.S. says was used in numerous terrorist attacks, including the attempted “shoe bomber” attack in 2001 and the attacks across the London transportation system in 2005.
The U.S. Central command release identified the target of the Jan. 29 site exploitation mission as an al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula “staging area, propaganda center, and logistics hub” for the terrorist network.
It says among the 14 people killed in the nighttime attack by SEAL Team 6 were terrorist network leaders and facilitators, including Sultan al Dhahab and Abd-al-Ra’uf al-Dhahab, two longstanding AQAP operational planners and weapons experts.
“The raid was an aggressive move to bring us closer to understanding, tracking, and eradicating AQAP. The U.S. remains committed to eradicating the threats posed by these terrorists and denying them space and time to plot attacks,” Thomas said in the statement.
The U.S. says AQAP has a long history of plotting, inspiring and exporting terror to America and the West, which it says was behind the “underwear bomber,” Boston Marathon attack and the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.
Jacqueline Klimas contributed to this report.
