Yemeni Lawmaker Sues US Military Veterans, Accusing Them of Attempting to Kill Him
Source: US News & World Report/AP
March 30, 2026, at 6:22 p.m.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A Yemeni lawmaker says in a lawsuit that U.S. military veterans who worked for a private security firm were hired as mercenaries to kill him in 2015 on behalf of the United Arab Emirates as part of a campaign by the U.S. ally that targeted political opponents.
The lawsuit by Anssaf Ali Mayo in federal court in San Diego was unsealed last week, revealing details of the allegations against former executives and employees of Spear Operations Group, a private military contracting firm that incorporated in Delaware in 2015 but was dissolved in 2018. Many of the employees were former U.S. special forces operators.
Mayo — a member of Yemen's parliament, who is represented by the Center for Justice & Accountability — accuses two military veterans and the founder of Spear Operations of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity and an attempted extrajudicial killing. The complaint said the UAE paid the private military contractor $1.5 million per month, plus bonuses for successful killings in Yemen, including Mayo's. The scheme described in the lawsuit echoes a 2018 report by BuzzFeed News that U.S. veterans were behind the attempt on his life.
According to the complaint, Spear founder and CEO, Abraham Golan, an Israeli-Hungarian dual citizen, recruited U.S. military veterans, including former Navy SEAL Isaac Gilmore, who later became chief operating officer of Spear, and former U.S. Army Special Forces member Dale Comstock. According to the complaint, the three men have admitted to their roles in the assassination campaign and the attempt on Mayo’s life. “There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen,” Golan confirmed to Buzzfeed. “I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition.”
Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2026-03-30/yemeni-lawmaker-sues-us-military-veterans-accusing-them-of-attempting-to-kill-him