U.S. airstrikes target al-Qaida in Yemen

WASHINGTON — The United States conducted airstrikes overnight Thursday against several targets suspected of belonging to al-Qaida across south-central Yemen, according to U.S. and Yemeni military officials, the first U.S. attacks in the country since an ill-fated Special Operations raid in January.

The coordinated series of attacks against al-Qaida militants occurred in three Yemeni provinces that have been suspected of being the site of terrorist activity — Abyan, Shabwa and Baydha — according to the Pentagon.

It was not immediately clear if the strikes were conducted against targets that were identified using information collected from the January raid that left one member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 dead and three others wounded, and that killed about two dozen civilians.

U.S. counterterrorism officials say the al-Qaida wing in Yemen is one of the deadliest in the world and poses the most immediate threat to the U.S. homeland. The terrorist organization based there has tried unsuccessfully to carry out three airliner attacks over the United States.

Yet analysts cautioned that information about the group and its plots was substantially curtailed when U.S. advisers withdrew from Yemen in March 2015, after Houthi rebels ousted the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the United States’ main counterterrorism partner, from Sana, the capital.

Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday that more than 20 strikes were “conducted in partnership with the government of Yemen and were coordinated with President Hadi.” He said the attacks targeted al-Qaida militants, equipment and infrastructure.

The mention that the strikes were done in partnership with Hadi’s government is notable because he had withdrawn permission for the United States to conduct Special Operations ground missions, a decision prompted by anger at the civilian casualties incurred in the January raid.

Computers and cellphones seized during that raid offered clues about attacks al-Qaida could carry out in the future, including insights into new types of hidden explosives the group is making and new training tactics for militants, U.S. officials said.