12 Al Qaeda suspects killed in Yemen
aden — Five separate US drone strikes killed at least 12 suspected Al Qaeda members in Yemen on Thursday, security officials said, barely a month after a controversial American commando raid against the militants.
A dawn strike targeted the home of a known Al Qaeda member in Yashbum valley in the southern province of Shabwa province, a provincial security official said. Four suspected militants standing outside the house were killed, he said.
A second strike on Al Qayfa in Baida province, further north, killed three suspected Al Qaeda members, a local official and a tribal chief said. Another strike targeted the militants in the Sawmaa district of the province, the local official said.
And a fourth targeted an Al Qaeda position east of Shaqra in the southern province of Abyan, a security source said. There was no immediate word of casualties in the Sawmaa and Shaqra strikes.
In the afternoon, another drone strike hit a vehicle in Wadea district of Abyan province, killing five more Al Qaeda suspects, a security official said.
Al Qaeda briefly overran Shaqra early last month just days after the January 29 US raid on one of their compounds in Baida province in which a Navy Seal was among the dead. As many as 16 civilians — eight women and eight children — were also killed, a provincial official said, drawing condemnation of the raid from human rights groups.
The Pentagon has acknowledged non-combatants including children were killed in what was the first such operation of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The US gives occasional reports on its drone strikes but it is the only country known to operate the unmanned aircraft in Yemen. —