The 8-year-old boy and his biological father have confessed to helping spy on the al Qaeda officer, and now the biological father is believed to have been executed while the fate of the young boy remains unknown.
The thorough story was reported by The Atlantic, who claim that the boy, named Barq al-Kulyabi, helped lead American drones to an al Qaeda operative named Adnan al-Qadhi who had been placed on the U.S. ‘kill list’ due to his role in the Yemeni branch of the terrorist organization.
The story of how Barq went from living on the streets of a small village to covertly placing electronic trackers on a man less than two days before he was killed in a drone strike is a heart-breaking one filled with family allegiances and financial struggles.
Barq was sent away by his father and mother who lived in Sanaa to go live with a wealthier distant relative in the smaller town of Bayt al-Ahmar, where al-Qadhi lived.
Barq’s family were not among Yemen’s most unlucky, as both parents were alive and the father was employed by the Yemeni Republican Guard, but their growing family and his small salary was not enough to support him.
The Republican Guard is an elite faction of the country’s military, and they have worked with U.S. forces in the past in order to help locate terrorists.
Unbeknownst to both Barq and his father, Hafizallah al-Kulaybi, in the early fall of 2012, the U.S. had called upon the Republican Guard to help them locate Qadhi.
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During the meeting, they taught the boy how to activate the electronic chips and stressed how important it was for the boy not to tell Qadhi about the devices, adding that he needed to plant them on the target a week later.