Right before the first missile struck this Toyota Hi-lux -- fourth in the line of vehicles -- all three of its occupants fled, including the man whom eyewitnesses thought was the apparent target of the strike. Iona Craig

Eight days after the attack, an Associated Press story filed from Washington stated that unnamed U.S. and Yemeni officials had said that the target of the strike was Shawqi Ali Ahmad al-Badani, whom they accused of being the ringleader of an Al-Qaeda plot that resulted in the closure of 19 U.S. diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa last summer. According to the AP, al-Badani was also connected to a plot to target the American embassy in Sana’a in 2012.

But witnesses and survivors of the strike said the target appeared to be a man named Nasr al-Hattam, who escaped along with two other passengers in the HiLux destroyed by the first strike. They thought he was the target because his car was attacked first and was the only one hit directly in the onslaught of missiles.

Al-Hattam was known locally as a “brave man” who had been in trouble with authorities in the past. According to those in the convoy and other local residents, he had previously been arrested and held in Sana’a. They were unsure how he had been able to return al-Baydah.

Al-Hatam’s name was added to Yemen’s list of most-wanted militants in January 2013, according to a Yemeni government official. Yemeni government records claim he has links to a May 2012 attack on a checkpoint of the elite Republican Guard, which left three soldiers dead. The government also believes he supported the militant takeover of Radda’ town in January 2012. Security forces raided his house later that year, although official records remain unclear about whether he was arrested at the time.

If al-Hatam was the target, it is unclear what imminent threat he posed to the U.S., or whether he could not feasibly have been captured alive.