Three US drone strikes kill 14 in Yemen

Zee Media Bureau

Yemen: In an escalation of US drone war in Yemen, at least 14 suspected al Qaeda terrorists were killed in the Arab country on Thursday. The latest attacks came a day after Yemeni authorities claimed that they had foiled a major al Qaeda plot against oil pipelines and ports. Thirty-four suspected al Qaeda militants have been killed in less than two weeks. The action against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen branch is known, comes amid a global terror alert issued by Washington. Thursday`s first reported drone attack hit a car carrying suspected militants in the district of Wadi Ubaidah, about 175 kilometers east of Sana`a. The second drone attack killed three alleged militants in the al-Ayoon area of Hadramawt province in the south, the official said. The third, also in Hadramawt province, killed three more suspected militants in the al-Qutn area, he added. While the United States acknowledges its drone program in Yemen, it does not talk about individual strikes or release information on how many are carried out. The program is run by the Pentagon`s Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA, with the military flying its drones out of Djibouti, and the CIA out of a base in Saudi Arabia. (With Agency inputs)