Yemen Officials: US Drone Strikes Kill Qaeda Suspects

Four separate US drone strikes killed at least seven suspected al-Qaeda members in Yemen on Thursday, security officials said.

A dawn strike targeted the home of a known al-Qaeda member in the Yashbum Valley in the southern province of Shabwa province, a provincial security official told Agence France Presse.

Four suspected militants who had been 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.

A third strike targeted the jihadists in the Sawmaa district of the same 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 any casualties in the Sawmaa and Shaqra strikes.

Thursday’s airstrikes come a month after US special forces carried out a raid in Baida province.

In that operation, one US Navy Seal was killed, six American soldiers were wounded and a military aircraft suffered a hard landing and had to be destroyed. It was launched just days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Civilians were also killed in the raid.