Sana’a: A suspected US drone strike in Yemen on Wednesday killed five suspected Al Qaida militants travelling in a vehicle near an extremist-held coastal city, military and security officials said.
The attack happened east of the city of Mukalla, the provincial capital of Hadramawt, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.
Al Qaida’s Yemen branch, considered by Washington to be the most dangerous offshoot of the terror network, has made gains in the sprawling eastern Hadramawt province, and captured Mukalla in April.
The Al Qaida offshoot has gained ground lately in Yemen, profiting from the civil war now engulfing the country. That fighting pits Iranian-backed Al Houthi militia and allied troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against an array of southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Islamist militants and loyalists of exiled President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Al Qaida on Tuesday said it carried out 12 separate gun and bomb attacks on Al Houthi fighters in the central province on Al Bayda. It was immediately possible to confirm the claims.
Washington, meanwhile, has kept up its drone attacks targeting Al Qaida terrorists in Yemen, including one in June in Mukalla that killed the group’s top leader.
President Hadi has been living in neighbouring Saudi Arabia after he and much of his government fled advances by Al Houthis earlier this year.
On Wednesday, he arrived for a two-day working visit to the UAE, one of the key backers of a Saudi-led coalition attempting to roll back gains by the militia.
The UAE has been participating in a Saudi-led, American-supported campaign targeting the militia and their allies that started in March. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are believed to have supplied pro-government forces with tanks and other fighting vehicles.
Emirati officials have not made public the precise nature of the country’s military role on the ground in Yemen.
