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Four Qaeda members killed in Yemen drone strikes

Four Qaeda members killed in Yemen drone strikes

January 22, 2017 | 12:06 PM
Yemeni loyalist forces patrol a highway near the Red Sea port town of Mocha on Friday.
Four suspected Al-Qaeda members were killed in drone strikes in central Yemen likely carried out by US forces, a security source said on Sunday.The source, asking not to be identified, said three "armed fighters of Al-Qaeda" died when their vehicle was struck on Saturday in the Sawmaa region of Al-Bayda province.A drone strike on Friday killed a local military instructor for Al-Qaeda in the same province, he said.The United States, which considers Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), to be its most dangerous, is the only force operating drones over Yemen.But it only sporadically reports on a long-running bombing campaign against AQAP.Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State jihadist group have exploited a power vacuum created by the two-year-old conflict in Yemen between the government and Houthi rebels, especially in the country's south and southeast.
January 22, 2017 | 12:06 PM