U.S. drone strike killed four Al-Qaeda linked militants including a field leader in Yemen’s Ahwar district.
According to Yemeni military source, the terror operatives were killed when an unmanned aircraft targeted a group of Al-Qaeda militants in the district of Ahwar, one of Al-Qaeda’s strongholds in the southern Abyan province.
Among them was a top field commander identified as Ali Shanna, whose nom de guerre was Sameh Al Marmi. He was believed to have been the right-hand man of Jalal Baleedi, AQAP’s top commander in Yemen before he was killed in 2016 by a U.S. drone strike
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as the Yemeni affiliate is known, has long been considered the global network’s most lethal branch and has attempted to carry out attacks inside the U.S.
Yemen was plunged into civil war more than three years ago. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State affiliate have exploited the chaos to expand their presence in the country.
U.S. has carried six precision drone raids targeting Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen since May.
