A US airstrike on Yemen’s Abyan province has killed nine members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), AFP has reported, citing a Yemeni “security source.”
Initial reports said the strike, which occurred on Friday, killed five al-Qaeda members, but the death toll later rose. “I saw five charred bodies at one of the targeted sites, as well as a burned-out car,” a local tribesman told AFP.
The report said the US airstrike hit Khabar Al-Maraqsha, a mountainous area known to have an al-Qaeda presence. So far, there’s been no confirmation from the US military about the attack.
The reported US airstrike comes a few weeks after the US ended its bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, who are officially known as Ansar Allah and control the Yemeni capital and territory where about 70% to 80% of Yemenis live.
The Houthis do not have a presence in the Abyan province, which is mainly under the control of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a separatist group that joined the US and Saudi-backed presidential council that was formed in 2022 after Riyadh gave up on trying to reinstall former Yemeni President Hadi.
While the STC has clashed with AQAP, some of its senior military leaders are former al-Qaeda fighters. Last year, a BBC investigation found that at least 11 former al-Qaeda members now worked for the STC, including Nasser al-Shiba, a suspect in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
During the US bombing campaign against the Houthis, there were reports that the US was considering backing a ground offensive in Yemen, which likely would have involved the STC. The US previously backed al-Qaeda-linked militants against the Houthis and did so throughout the Saudi-UAE war on Yemen from 2015 to 2022.
A report from The Associated Press in 2018 revealed that the US-backed coalition in Yemen had recruited al-Qaeda fighters to join its ranks. US weapons sold to Saudi Arabia and the UAE also ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Before backing the coalition, the US actually briefly cooperated with the Houthis against AQAP and reportedly shared intelligence with the Zaydi Shia group.
