A Yemeni lawmaker who says he barely survived a bombing meant to kill him has filed a federal lawsuit against three former U.S. military veterans, accusing them of running a mercenary assassination operation bankrolled by the United Arab Emirates. The suit names Abraham Golan, a former Special Forces commando; Issac Gilmore, a former Navy SEAL; and Dale Comstock, another former Army Special Forces member, as defendants in what the court papers describe as a targeted killing program operating in Yemen.
Anssaf Ali Mayo, a member of Yemen's House of Representatives and the al-Islah political party, claims in the filing that he was the primary target of the operation. He says he fled moments before an explosion ripped through al-Islah party headquarters in Aden, and that he has lived in exile in Saudi Arabia ever since, separated from his wife and children, whom he sees once a year.
The allegations, detailed in court documents reported by the New York Post, paint a picture of a private killing squad assembled in Southern California, equipped and deployed from a New Jersey airport, and paid handsomely by a Gulf monarchy to eliminate political opponents in a war-torn country. If the claims hold up, the case raises hard questions about the accountability of American citizens who hire themselves out to foreign governments for lethal work.
The lawsuit traces the operation's origins to August 2015, when Golan and Gilmore founded Spear Operations Group in Rancho Santa Fe, an affluent enclave in San Diego. Golan allegedly plotted the hits from a 7,000-square-foot mansion valued at $7 million, five bedrooms, five baths, four fireplaces, and a resort-style pool.
By October 2015, Golan had allegedly hired Gilmore as chief operating officer. Gilmore had been decommissioned from the U.S. military in 2011 after accidentally shooting a Navy SEAL during a training exercise.
The deal with the UAE was allegedly brokered by Mohammed Dahlan, a former security chief for the Palestinian Authority, over lunch at an Italian restaurant inside the officers' club of a UAE military base in Abu Dhabi. The lawsuit claims the UAE agreed to pay Spear $1.5 million a month plus bonuses for successful killings.
Dale Comstock was recruited to run the killing team on the ground. The court papers say Golan put $40,000 on the table at the Rancho Santa Fe property, and Comstock took the money and the job. His monthly compensation was allegedly $40,000 plus bonuses.
By December 2015, the group had assembled. The lawsuit says they boarded a chartered jet at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and flew to Yemen carrying body armor and specialized tools to prepare explosives.
Mayo, described in the filing as a member of Yemen's second-largest political group, sat at the top of the target list. The lawsuit attributes the UAE's motive to a desire to eliminate al-Islah, prevent Iranian influence, advance its own trading ambitions, and tighten control over the strategically vital Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Hormuz, which, the papers note, Iran has frequently threatened to shut down.
The alleged plan was straightforward and brutal: set off explosives at al-Islah headquarters in Aden, then shoot survivors with small firearms. Drone footage referenced in the lawsuit reportedly captured the assassination attempt. An explosive charge loaded with shrapnel was detonated, shots were fired, and a second explosion came from a booby-trapped SUV.
But Mayo had been warned his life was in danger. He fled moments before the blast. The lawsuit says he survived but claims he has suffered lasting "psychological and emotional trauma." Since 2016, he has lived apart from his wife and children, who remain in Yemen.
The case recalls other instances where elite networks and shadowy financial arrangements have drawn legal scrutiny long after the alleged conduct took place.
The court papers include statements attributed to Golan that are remarkably blunt. The filing quotes him as saying:
"There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen. I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition."
AP News confirmed that Golan made a similar statement to BuzzFeed, using nearly identical language about the program being sanctioned by the UAE. The AP report corroborated the core allegations: that the UAE funded Spear Operations Group at $1.5 million a month plus bonuses, and that the lawsuit names Golan, Gilmore, and Comstock in the alleged campaign.
Comstock's alleged words in the filing are equally stark. The lawsuit quotes him describing a plan for the al-Islah headquarters:
"I was gonna try to open the door, throw a couple hand grenades, and then just go in there and shoot everyone."
Neither Golan, Gilmore, Comstock, nor the UAE have been quoted responding to the allegations in the available reporting. Whether any criminal charges have been filed remains unclear.
The lawsuit references a finding by a UN group of experts that bolsters Mayo's claims beyond the word of one plaintiff. The papers quote the group as concluding that it "found reasonable grounds to believe that the United Arab Emirates are responsible for the 10 assassinations in Aden it investigated."
Ten assassinations. One country's fingerprints. And a private American firm allegedly collecting monthly checks to carry them out.
Questions about foreign money flowing through opaque channels to fund questionable operations are not new. Domestically, similar concerns have surfaced in cases where political money was funneled through shady intermediaries to obscure its true purpose.
Mayo is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees, and a court order that would stop the killing team from targeting him. The filing identifies Gilmore as a U.S. citizen and resident of San Diego, Golan as an Israeli-Hungarian citizen now living in Westport, Connecticut, and Comstock as a U.S. citizen living in Indonesia.
The geographic spread of the defendants alone presents logistical challenges for the case. So does the nature of the allegations: proving a covert assassination program funded by a foreign sovereign, using evidence gathered from a war zone, in an American courtroom.
The lawsuit does not identify the specific court or case number in the available reporting. The exact date of the alleged attack on al-Islah headquarters in Aden is also not stated. And the filing date of the court documents remains unclear.
The broader questions raised by the case extend well beyond one Yemeni lawmaker's survival. When American citizens, trained at taxpayer expense in the most elite military units the country operates, turn around and sell those skills to foreign governments for targeted killings, the legal and moral framework is murky at best. The lawsuit alleges these men did not act as rogue freelancers but as contractors operating under an agreement with a sovereign nation, paid on a schedule, with bonuses tied to body counts.
Accountability in these situations often proves elusive. Foreign sovereigns claim immunity. Contractors scatter across borders. And the victims, if they survive at all, are left to pursue justice in courts thousands of miles from where the violence occurred.
The intersection of royal wealth, covert operations, and legal exposure has drawn attention in other contexts as well. Lawsuits involving powerful figures and private conduct have a way of surfacing uncomfortable truths that the principals would rather keep buried.
Mayo says he has paid for his political affiliations with years of exile. His wife and children remain in Yemen. He sees them once a year. He claims ongoing psychological and emotional trauma from an event that, by his account, nearly ended his life.
Whether the American legal system can deliver accountability in a case this tangled, spanning continents, involving a Gulf monarchy's alleged patronage, and resting on the conduct of men trained by the U.S. military, remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, scrutiny of how powerful institutions and wealthy patrons operate behind closed doors continues to intensify. Revelations about institutional pressure tactics and private dealings have shown that public accountability often lags far behind the conduct it is meant to address.
The facts alleged in this lawsuit are not subtle. A $1.5-million-a-month contract. Bonuses for kills. A chartered jet loaded with body armor and bomb-making tools. Drone footage of an explosion. And a man who says he ran the whole thing, on the record, without apparent hesitation.
If American-trained operators can be rented out to foreign governments as contract killers, and the only consequence is a civil lawsuit filed years later by a survivor living in exile, then the system designed to prevent exactly this kind of conduct has failed. And the people who built that system owe the public an explanation.
