ADEN, Yemen - Air strikes in
southern Yemen killed about 30 suspected al Qaeda members on Sunday, local
tribal sources said, in the second day of strikes against militant targets in
the country.
On Saturday an air strike killed 10
al Qaeda militants and three civilians in central Yemen, a country that
neighbors top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and is home to al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP), one of the group's most lethal wings.
The defense ministry said Sunday's
early strikes targeted a remote mountainous region of the south. Its website
quoted an official source on the High Security Committee as saying that they
were based on information that "terrorist elements were planning to target
vital civilian and military installations".
Similar wording was used to justify
Saturday's strike, in which three nearby civilians were also killed.
Local and tribal sources later told
Reuters that another strike hit a car carrying suspected al Qaeda militants in
the southern Shabwa province, killing five of them, late on Sunday.
The official source quoted by the
defense ministry did not specify the nature of the air strikes, saying only
that the strikes happened in the framework of "efforts the Yemeni
government is exerting to combat terrorism". But local sources have said
unmanned drone aircraft had been seen above the target areas beforehand.
The United States acknowledges using
drone strikes to target AQAP in Yemen, but it does not comment on the practice.
Local tribal sources said about 25
bodies had been transferred from the sites of Sunday's first attacks to nearby
towns. They said at least three separate strikes had taken place after dawn
prayers, all targeting al Qaeda camps.
The official source said the
militants targeted were among the "leading and dangerous" elements of
al Qaeda and were of different nationalities.
Eyewitnesses said they had seen al
Qaeda militants dragging dead bodies and some wounded people out of the area.
Na Mwanaharakati.
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