United States bombs al-Qaida targets in Yemen

Successive US administrations have carried out a drone war against Al-Qaeda in Yemen since soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Hassan added on Thursday, that drones and helicopters conducted air strikes in various areas inside Al-Baida Province.

It is unclear at this time whether the latest strikes were the result of intelligence the USA obtained from the January operation, which yielded multiple terabytes of data gathered from the AQAP site. A military aircraft suffered a hard landing and had to be destroyed in the assault, which took place days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Baraa Shiban, the Yemen project coordinator for the worldwide human rights NGO Reprieve also told the newspaper: “It is clear that the new USA administration plans to escalate its operations against al-Qaeda, and it wants to show the American public it is serious in this regard”.

Air Forces of the US-led coalition struck Syria’s northwestern Idlib Governorate earlier this week, targeting a prominent militant leader and deputy chief of the al-Qaeda splinter group of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

The unidentified aircraft, believed to be American, also deployed troops on the ground in the al-Saeed area in Shabwa province and engaged suspected al Qaeda militants in a battle that lasted almost half an hour.

A senior Yemeni official described the strikes as “open-ended” and said they raised questions about the objectives of such an operation.

The strikes had always been planned and, a US official said.

Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Thursday that more than 20 strikes were “conducted in partnership with the government of Yemen” and were coordinated with President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.

USA fighter jets pounded al-Qaida targets in Yemen for a second straight day on Friday, security and tribal sources said, as Washington steps up its air war against the jihadists.

One of the targets was the home of Saad Atef, an al Qaeda leader in the area. In addition to Owens, 14 militants and several civilians were killed.

The US military later denied allegations reported by the New York Times that the mission had been compromised, and that the commandos knew about this.

The US was routinely conducting multiple strikes a day in 2012 during its efforts to expel AQAP from its stronghold in Abyan province.