US drones and fighters launched an attack today on a police station in Wadyia, a town in the Abyan Province of southern Yemen, killing at least eight people inside. Officials termed the slain “suspected militants.”

The town is one of several towns in Abyan Province which have fallen to a faction calling itself the Ansar al-Sharia, and the people inside the police station are likely to have been loyal to that faction. The slain men were said to have been sleeping inside.

The US has previously launched a number of drona ttacks in Abyan and killed scores of people, but this was the first time US officials were so public in conceding America’s role in an attack.

A second, as yet unconfirmed strike was also reported by officials, with a US drone supposedly targeting a car carrying an al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) official. Locals reported the targeted official survived the attack.

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