(CNN) A US military raid in Yemen that killed civilians and a Navy SEAL has proven another political headache for US President Donald Trump just days into his presidency. At least 23 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the January 29 mission, according to London-based nongovernmental organization Reprieve and a Sanaa-based human rights worker.
But Trump is not the first president to have carried out such a deadly operation, and previous US administrations have been criticized by rights groups for killing Yemeni civilians in raids and drone strikes.
The US has focused on Yemen since it launched its global "war on terror" following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. In cooperation with the Yemeni government, it regularly targets members of the al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), which has taken control of swathes of Yemeni territory following the 2011 Arab Spring.
Here's how the raid unfolded.
THE PLAN
Trump was briefed on the plan by Joseph Dunford (L), MIchael Flynn (C), and James Mattis.
The raid had been planned for months, and the Obama administration first considered and approved it late last year, multiple officials told CNN. But it was delayed for "operational reasons," according to Obama administration officials, who said he never signed off on this specific operation before leaving office.
Trump first learned about the plan from National Security Adviser Michael Flynn on the morning of January 25, five days after his inauguration, a White House official told CNN.
At dinner in the White House residence that evening, he gave his conditional go-ahead to his top military brass, on the advice of Flynn, his defense secretary nominee James Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump officially signed off on the plan a day later.
THE RAID
The raid was on an al Qaeda compound in Yemen's Al Bayda province and was considered relatively risky. The goal was to collect intelligence needed to aid future strikes against al Qaeda and prevent terror attacks, a military official said.
The forces also hoped to target or gain intelligence to help find the leader of AQAP, Qassim al-Rimi, according to a senior US military official.
The raid involved elite US Navy SEALs and special forces from the UAE, with armed drones flying overhead in support, according to officials from several countries.
But as the combined force approached the compound, it was detected and an intense firefight broke out. Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens was killed and three other SEALs were injured.
During the battle, al Qaeda fighters took up firing positions on the roof of a nearby building. As the US troops came under fire, they called in an airstrike against the building, which likely led to civilian casualties, military officials said.
An 8-year-old girl -- the daughter of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who directed attacks against the US from Yemen -- was reportedly among those who died. Her father was killed in 2011.
Aside from the casualties, the raid appears to have achieved some of its goals. US Central Command said three senior AQAP officials were killed and valuable intelligence retrieved.
THE AFTERMATH
The raid was described as a "failure" by a senior Yemeni defense official on Wednesday who said that his government had asked the US to stop ground operations in the country without its approval.
Before the raid, the US had carried out operations without explicit consent -- or, as the Yemeni official put it to CNN, the US had "a green light for conducting ground missions." But that light "is now red," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"That's what happens when a mission goes wrong," he said. "From the intelligence we have, conducting a raid was the wrong option and failure was written all over it. The only side that gained is al Qaeda."
But the official went on to say that Yemen did not want to lose the US as a key ally.
A US defense official said Yemen was notified before the raid happened and pushed back at the idea that any additional restrictions have been placed on US counter-terrorism in Yemen, saying "nothing has changed."
The raid appeared to amuse al-Rimi, the AQAP leader. "The new fool of the White House received a painful slap across his face," he said in an 11-minute audio message, taunting Trump.
US Senator John McCain of Arizona also called the raid a "failure" while speaking to reporters Tuesday.
DEJA VU?
But the raid that has attracted such criticism and scrutiny early in Trump's presidency is not the first of its kind.
Obama also oversaw the air campaign in Yemen against al Qaeda targets, and his first strike in 2009 was a disaster -- it mistakenly took a Bedouin village for a terrorist training camp, killing 41 civilians, according to Human Rights Watch, in addition to 14 suspected terrorists.
And while the January raid reportedly killed Anwar al-Awlaki's daughter, a 2011 strike ordered by the Obama administration killed the former AQAP leader's son.
As the Obama administration tried to soften some of the hard-handed tactics inherited from the Bush administration in the country's war on terror, it ratcheted up the drone program, most notably in Pakistan, to target terrorist groups without putting US lives in danger.
The Obama administration vastly accelerated the campaign in Yemen after the Arab Spring uprisings.
WHAT NEXT?
Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following a reported Saudi-led coalition strike in Sanaa on February 1.
The January raid is evidence of two things: AQAP remains a formidable, resilient enemy, and it is more deeply entrenched in Yemen's tribal society than ever,CNN's Tim Lister reports.
A US official confirmed to CNN that the raid was aimed at better understanding connections between regional tribal fighters and al Qaeda operatives.
AQAP has ably exploited Yemen's collapse as a state into a fractious and stunningly complex mosaic. It has gained from the Saudi military campaign of the past two years that has targeted the Houthi minority, one of AQAP's enemies in Yemen. The Houthis took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen in the fall of 2014.
Michael Horton, a senior analyst at the Jamestown Foundation and regular visitor to Yemen, told CNN of AQAP that "the leadership recognizes it will be targeted and therefore actively trains replacements. It's also increasingly diffuse."
Writing in the Combating Terrorism Center's Sentinel journal, Horton says AQAP is "refining its capabilities in multiple areas, and in what is a dangerous parallel with Syria, is deepening its ties to local communities."
Ground operations always carry with them substantial risk and uncertainty. Back in 2015, when he was director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, Nicholas Rasmussen said that "the lack of robust US presence in the country significantly complicates our ability to carry out counter-terrorism operations inside Yemen."
That presence remains weak today, and Yemen's chaos has grown even worse in the past two years. Combating AQAP remains a long-haul effort.
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