US air strike ‘kills al-Qaeda militants’
Local officials and medics have reported that at least 40 militants have been killed in a US air strike on an al-Qaeda training camp in south-eastern Yemen.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has exploited the current conflict in Yemen, in order to expand its territory.
Over the past year, the Houthi rebel movement and military units loyal to the former president have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition which has US-backing.
Almost 6,300 people, half of them civilians, have been killed in the fighting.
The Pentagon said ‘dozens’ of al-Qaeda fighters were killed when American aircraft struck the Arabian Peninsula training camp on Tuesday morning.
Chris Sherwood, a Pentagon spokesman added the operation used both manned aircraft and drones.
More than 150 people were killed earlier this month when drones and fixed-wing aircraft launched a series of strikes against an al-Shabab training camp north of Mogadishu in Somalia.
In February, the US targeted an Islamic State base in Sabratha, Libya.
49 people were killed, including one senior Islamic State fighter involved in the planning of multiple terrorist attacks in Tunisia.
The US considers AQAP as one of the deadliest offshoots of the jihadist network founded by Osama bin Laden.
The group claimed responsibility for the attack on the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris last year that left 12 cartoonists and office staff dead and they also attempted to bomb a US-bound airliner in 2009.
UN officials have called on the Saudis to halt their air campaign, saying that it is responsible for most civilian casualties in the conflict.
The UN is also warning of famine in the Yemeni city of Taiz, which has been besieged by Shiite Houthi rebels for months.
The World Food Program (WFP) said on Monday that Taiz ‘is in the grip of severe food insecurity at ‘Emergency’ level’ – one step below famine’.
The UN agency says it delivered enough aid to part of the city on Saturday to support 3,000 families for one month.
