Yemen air strikes kill 23 suspected Qaeda militants: Police
"Twenty-three al-Qaeda fighters were killed in air raids launched late on Friday against their positions," one security source told AFP.
A police source gave the same death toll from the air strikes in a mountainous area of Al-Bayda province.
The sources said the raids hit three villages west of the provincial capital, also called Al-Bayda -- Al-Makhnaq, Al-Dooqi and Al-Mamdud.
Residents said the raids were carried out by US aircraft, but those accounts could not be immediately verified.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the jihadist network took advantage of a protracted anti-government uprising last year to seize large swathes of the south and east.
Washington has long made the country a major focus of its "war on terror". Two of the raids, launched from around 2330 IST and lasting around three hours in total, struck the homes of Ahmed and Ali al-Humaiqani, two residents of Wadi al-Makhnaq, witnesses said.
"An
Al-Qaeda
training
camp
can
be
found
in
Wadi
al-Makhnaq,"
one
local
resident
told
AFP.
"Several
armed
men
arrived
in
multiple
vehicles,
along
with
two
trucks
loaded
with
weapons
and
ammunitions
boxes,
and
attended
Friday
prayers
in
Wadi
al-Makhnaq,"
said
the
resident,
who
declined
to
be
identified.
AFP