US Airstrike in Yemen Kills Five Suspected Al-Qaeda Militants: Security Sources
A second official confirmed the details and added that although the identities of those killed have not yet been confirmed, it is believed one of the group’s local leaders was among the dead.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) — A U.S. airstrike in southern Yemen has killed five suspected members of Al-Qaeda, including possibly a local commander, Yemeni security officials told AFP on Saturday.
The strike, reportedly carried out Friday evening in the mountainous Khabar Al-Maraqsha region of Abyan province, targeted an area long believed to serve as a stronghold for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The province lies near Aden, the seat of Yemen's internationally recognized government.
"Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated," one security official said. A second official confirmed the details and added that although the identities of those killed have not yet been confirmed, it is believed one of the group’s local leaders was among the dead.
AQAP, formed in 2009 through a merger of Al-Qaeda factions in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, was once considered the most dangerous branch of the global jihadist network by U.S. intelligence. It has exploited years of conflict and instability in Yemen to entrench itself in remote regions, particularly in the country’s south and east.
Yemen has been mired in a brutal civil war since 2015, when Iran-aligned Huthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene on behalf of the government. The conflict has since created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters, with hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced.
The latest U.S. strike comes just weeks after Washington reached a ceasefire agreement with the Houthis, who have held vast areas of Yemen for more than a decade. The deal followed months of escalating tensions in the Red Sea, where Houthi forces began targeting international shipping in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Those attacks prompted retaliatory airstrikes by the United States and Britain beginning in January 2024.
Despite the relative decline in Houthi-government combat in recent months—largely due to a UN-brokered truce in 2022—Washington continues to target AQAP fighters, underscoring the ongoing threat posed by the group amid Yemen’s fragile security environment.
Neither the U.S. Department of Defense nor U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has officially commented on the strike.
