Drones target 2 Qaeda militants in Yemen

dubai — A suspected US drone strike killed two men believed to be Al Qaeda militants in central Yemen, local officials said early on Monday, hours after American commandos carried out the first military operation authorised by President Donald Trump.

The officials said the pilotless plane targeted a vehicle travelling in Baihan in the province of Shabwa, in which two suspected Al Qaeda members were travelling. Both men were killed, they said.

Al Qaeda has exploited a civil war in Yemen pitting the Iranaligned Houthi movement against the Saudi-backed government of president Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi to recruit more followers and enhance its influence in the impoverished country.

The United States, which sees the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda as a major threat to its regional interests, conducted dozens of drone strikes in Yemen throughout Barack Obama’s presidency..

A US commando died and three were wounded during a dawn raid on Sunday in the rural Yakla district of central Yemen’s Al Bayda province.

The US military also said that at least 14 suspected Al Qaeda militants were killed.

The raid in the rural Yakla district apparently targeted a local Al Qaeda branch and its leader, Abdulraoof Al Dhahab, local witnesses and officials told journalists. Eight-year-old Anwar Al Awlaki, the daughter of US-born Yemeni preacher and Al Qaeda ideologue Anwar Al Awlaki, was among the children killed in the raid, according to her grandfather. Her father was killed in a US drone strike in 2011. —