US raid on Yemen militants kills 30
sanaa — A US commando died in a dawn raid in southern Yemen on Sunday that killed around 30 people including Al Qaeda suspects and civilians, the US military and local Yemeni officials said.
It was the first combat casualty of the Trump administration and its first operation in the war-damaged Arabian Peninsula nation against a powerful Al Qaeda branch that has been a frequent target of US drone strikes.
The gunbattle in the rural Yakla district of Al Bayda province killed a senior leader in Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch, Abdulraoof Al Dhahab, Al Qaeda said. Medics at the scene said 30 people were killed, including 10 women and three children.
The US military said in a statement that 14 Al Qaeda militants died in the raid, which netted “information that will likely provide insight into the planning of future terror plots.”
Three US commandoes were also wounded in the operation in which a military aircraft experienced a hard landing and was “intentionally destroyed in place”. —
sanaa — The US military said on Sunday that one service member was killed and three others wounded in a raid in Yemen targeting its local Al Qaeda branch, marking the first-known combat death of a member of the US military under President Donald Trump’s new administration.
US Central Command said in a statement that a fourth service member was injured in a “hard landing” in a nearby location. The aircraft was unable to fly afterward and was “intentionally destroyed.”
The Central Command statement said 14 militants from Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, formally known as “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” were killed in the assault and that US service members taking part in the raid captured “information that will likely provide insight into the planning of future terror plots.”
Yemeni security and tribal officials said the surprise dawn assault in Yemen’s central Bayda province killed three senior Al Qaeda leaders: Abdul Raouf Al Dhahab, Sultan Al Dhahab, and Seif Al Nims.
The Al Dhahab family is considered an ally of Al Qaeda, which is now chiefly concentrated in Bayda province. A third family member, Tarek Al Dhahab, was killed in a US drone strike several years ago. It was not immediately clear whether the family members were actual members of Al Qaeda . The US troops killed or wounded some two dozen men, including some Saudis present at the site, according to the Yemeni officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief journalists.
An official with Al Qaeda confirmed the killings, describing the attack as a “massacre” and saying that women and children had been killed as well. The official sent to The Associated Press in Cairo photos purportedly showing the bloodied bodies of several children killed in the raid.
The official said the Apache attack helicopters struck the area from the air before dropping commandos in for the raid, which took place near Yakla village in Radaa district.
A week ago, suspected US drone strikes killed three other alleged Al Qaeda operatives in Bayda in what was the first-such killings reported in the country since Trump assumed the presidency. —