US air strikes targeting leaders from Yemen’s active al-Qaeda branch have killed 15 suspected militants, Yemeni officials said on Wednesday.
Yemeni security and military officials said missiles struck a school and a car in Abyan province in an area between Lauder and Mood where the militants were believed to be hiding.
A Western official in Washington confirmed the US carried out a strike against suspected leaders from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but said initial indications were that five people were killed. The official did not say where the strike occurred or specify whether it was carried out by a drone or a warplane.
All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to release the information.
Security across Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has largely collapsed during the nearly year-old popular uprising against longtime autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh.