AFP, Aden :
The death toll from a US raid on Al-Qaeda in Yemen on Sunday has risen to 57 people, including 41 suspected militants and 16 civilians, a provincial official said.
Eight women and eight children were among those killed in the raid in the central province of Baida, the official said.
It would be Washington’s first strike on jihadists in Yemen since President Donald Trump took office on January 20.
Seven women and three children were among those killed in the raid on Yakla district in the central province of Baida, said the official, who did not want to be named, and tribal sources.
Earlier, tribal and sources in the region said the raid targeted the houses of three tribal chiefs linked to Al-Qaeda, adding that a number of civilians were also killed.
But the provincial official said Apache helicopters targeted also a school, mosque and a medical facility used by Al-Qaeda militants.
Under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, the United States stepped up its use of drone strikes against suspected jihadists in Yemen, as well as other countries including Afghanistan. The United States considers the extremist group’s Yemen-based franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to be its most dangerous. But although it only sporadically reports on a long-running bombing campaign against AQAP, it is the only force known to be operating drones over Yemen.
On January 14, the Pentagon announced the killing a senior Al-Qaeda operative in Baida the week before in an air strike.
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 Shiite Huthi rebels, especially in the country’s south and southeast. A Yemeni security officer and a local official corroborated that account. Fahd, a local resident who asked that only his first name be used, said several bodies remained under debris and that houses and the local mosque were damaged in the attack.
U.S. special forces attempted to rescue an American and a South African hostage held by al Qaeda in another part of the country in December 2014. The captives were killed in the subsequent firefight.
The United States conducted dozens of drone strikes in Yemen throughout Barack Obama’s presidency to combat al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, regarded as one of the global militant group’s most dangerous branches.
The local al Qaeda unit organised the Charlie Hebdo magazine attack in Paris in 2015 and has repeatedly tried to down U.S. airliners.
The death toll from a US raid on Al-Qaeda in Yemen on Sunday has risen to 57 people, including 41 suspected militants and 16 civilians, a provincial official said.
Eight women and eight children were among those killed in the raid in the central province of Baida, the official said.
It would be Washington’s first strike on jihadists in Yemen since President Donald Trump took office on January 20.
Seven women and three children were among those killed in the raid on Yakla district in the central province of Baida, said the official, who did not want to be named, and tribal sources.
Earlier, tribal and sources in the region said the raid targeted the houses of three tribal chiefs linked to Al-Qaeda, adding that a number of civilians were also killed.
But the provincial official said Apache helicopters targeted also a school, mosque and a medical facility used by Al-Qaeda militants.
Under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, the United States stepped up its use of drone strikes against suspected jihadists in Yemen, as well as other countries including Afghanistan. The United States considers the extremist group’s Yemen-based franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to be its most dangerous. But although it only sporadically reports on a long-running bombing campaign against AQAP, it is the only force known to be operating drones over Yemen.
On January 14, the Pentagon announced the killing a senior Al-Qaeda operative in Baida the week before in an air strike.
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 Shiite Huthi rebels, especially in the country’s south and southeast. A Yemeni security officer and a local official corroborated that account. Fahd, a local resident who asked that only his first name be used, said several bodies remained under debris and that houses and the local mosque were damaged in the attack.
U.S. special forces attempted to rescue an American and a South African hostage held by al Qaeda in another part of the country in December 2014. The captives were killed in the subsequent firefight.
The United States conducted dozens of drone strikes in Yemen throughout Barack Obama’s presidency to combat al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, regarded as one of the global militant group’s most dangerous branches.
The local al Qaeda unit organised the Charlie Hebdo magazine attack in Paris in 2015 and has repeatedly tried to down U.S. airliners.
