The US CENTCOM has announced that it had conducted a series of six airstrikes in Yemen last week targeting the local al Qaeda affiliate there. They were the first US airstrikes in Yemen since January 1, when the US conducted two strikes, including one that killed Jamal al-Badawi, an al Qaeda operative linked to the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
According to the statement the airstrikes occurred in Al Bayda Governorate and it was against AQAP and ISIS-Y to disrupt and destroy militants’ attack-plotting efforts, networks, and freedom of maneuver within the region.
The US did not release details of any casualties from the recent strikes. The US military carried out 131 airstrikes in Yemen in 2017 and conducted 36 strikes in 2018, nearly all of them targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The US has sought to prevent al Qaeda from exploiting the chaos of Yemen’s civil war to establish a safe haven especially seeing as AQAP is considered the most lethal branch of the Osama-founded al Qaeda in the world.
