A Yemeni lawmaker who says a bomb nearly killed him in 2015 is now hauling a group of former U.S. special-operations veterans into federal court in San Diego.
Anssaf Ali Mayo, a member of Yemen's parliament, has filed a lawsuit accusing the founder of a U.S. private military firm and two former U.S. special-operations veterans of trying to assassinate him in the port city of Aden. The complaint, unsealed this month, alleges explosives were planted at Mayo’s office and that the attempt forced him into exile. Mayo is suing under the Alien Tort Statute and accuses the defendants of war crimes, crimes against humanity and an attempted extrajudicial killing. The case names Abraham Golan, Isaac Gilmore and Dale Comstock.
What the complaint says
As reported by Times of San Diego, the complaint alleges the United Arab Emirates paid Spear Operations Group about $1.5 million per month, plus bonuses for successful killings, and that Spear recruited former U.S. special-forces personnel to carry out a campaign of targeted strikes. The suit says the defendants admitted roles in the program and that some planning occurred in the United States. The complaint was filed in the Southern District of California and was unsealed last week.
The San Diego connection
Court papers reviewed by local outlets say Golan and Gilmore lived in and held meetings in the San Diego area while arranging operations abroad, giving the case a concrete local tie. According to KPBS, the complaint says explosive devices were placed at Mayo’s office on Dec. 29, 2015, and that Mayo fled minutes before the blasts. After the incident he went into exile in Saudi Arabia. Court records indicate Comstock is currently representing himself, while other defendants have not filed substantive answers.
Past reporting and on-the-record admissions
Investigations dating to 2018 have reported on Spear’s activities, and a 2024 BBC documentary and human-rights groups have since documented on-the-record interviews with former Spear members. Those reports and earlier exposés describe a purported “kill list” and payments to Spear, and summarize the company founder’s remark that there was a targeted assassination program in Yemen. For background on those earlier revelations, see reporting summarized by Newsweek and related coverage tied to the BBC documentary.
Legal questions the case raises
Mayo filed the suit under the Alien Tort Statute, the one-sentence jurisdictional provision that lets non-U.S. citizens bring civil claims in U.S. courts for violations of the law of nations, as explained in a Congressional Research Service primer on the ATS. The statute’s reach has been constrained by Supreme Court decisions such as Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum and Jesner v. Arab Bank, which limited extraterritorial application and narrowed liability doctrines. Early procedural fights in San Diego are expected over jurisdiction, extraterritoriality and what international-law norms, if any, the court will recognize.
What’s next
The Center for Justice & Accountability is representing Mayo, and Daniel McLaughlin of the group said the suit highlights the need to hold former U.S. service members accountable when they break the law, according to The Associated Press. The case will proceed in San Diego federal court, where judges will first sort contested threshold issues before any merits discovery begins. For local readers, the story lands here because of the defendants’ past residency and meetings in the San Diego area, facts that could shape whether and how the claims move forward.
