Yemen, guided by US intelligence, strikes al-Qaida hideouts; 30 militants said to be killed

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Yemen strikes al-Qaida chiefs in US-aided assault

SAN’A, Yemen — Yemen’s military hit suspected al-Qaida hideouts for the second time in a week, killing at least 30 militants in a remote area of the country — a fragmented, unstable nation the U.S. fears could turn into an Afghanistan-like refuge for the terrorist network.

The strikes on Thursday, which were carried out with U.S. and Saudi intelligence help, hit a gathering of top leaders and other targets in a remote mountain valley, officials said.

The newly aggressive Yemeni campaign against al-Qaida is being boosted by a dose of American aid, a reflection of Washington’s concerns about al-Qaida’s presence in a highly strategic location on the border with oil-rich U.S.-ally Saudi Arabia.

The Pentagon recently confirmed it is has poured nearly $70 million in military aid into Yemen this year — compared with none in 2008. The U.S. military has boosted its counterterrorism training for Yemeni forces, and is providing more intelligence, which probably includes surveillance by unmanned drones, according to U.S. officials and analysts.

The result appears to be a sharp escalation in Yemen’s campaign against al-Qaida, which previously amounted to scattered raids against militants, mixed with tolerance of some fighters who made vague promises they would avoid terrorist activity.

Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton addressed the strikes aboard Air Force One on Thursday, as President Barack Obama headed to Hawaii.

“As we’ve said previously, the president supports the government of Yemen in their efforts to take out terrorist elements in their country,” he told reporters. “We continue to support those efforts.”

When asked if the U.S. knew this strike was coming, Burton replied, “I’m not going to comment on those reports.”

The United States has been pressing Yemen for well over a year to take tougher action against al-Qaida, which has steadily been building up its presence in the country. Fighters have been arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan, finding safe haven with tribes angry at the Yemeni government and carrying out attacks in Yemen and across the border in Saudi Arabia.

Yemen’s government, which has little control outside the capital, has been distracted by other internal problems. It is fighting a fierce war against Shiite rebels who rose up near the Saudi border, and Saudi forces have gotten involved, battling rebels who have crossed into its territory. The government is also struggling with a secessionist movement in the once-independent south and trying to deal with rampant poverty.

In Thursday’s 4 a.m. military strike, Yemeni warplanes hit what officials called a gathering of senior al-Qaida figures in Rafd, a remote mountain valley in eastern Shabwa province that’s sparsely populated by small tribal villages — often little more than a collection of tents.

The top leader of al-Qaida’s branch in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, and his deputy, Saeed al-Shihri, were believed to be at the meeting, Yemen’s Supreme Security Committee said in a statement. But Yemeni officials said they could not confirm for certain whether the two were there or whether they were injured in the strikes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Yemen’s deputy defense minister, Rashad al-Alaimy, told parliament Thursday that three important leadership members were killed, but he did not identify them. He said the strikes were carried out “using intelligence aid from Saudi Arabia and the United States of America in our fight against terrorism.”

Mohamed Al-Maqdeshi, head of security in Shabwa, told reporters a number of leaders were killed, but could only confirm a midlevel figure: Mohammed Ahmed Saleh Omair.

A Rafd resident, Awad al-Daghary, told The Associated Press by telephone that bearded al-Qaida fighters brought the bodies of Omair and three others killed in the strike to al-Daghary’s tribe for burial. Two of the bodies were of tribe members who had run off to join al-Qaida, he said.

Further strikes Thursday targeted other al-Qaida hideouts, the Supreme Security Committee said in a statement. The committee, headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, oversees operations by the military and security forces.

It said more than 30 al-Qaida militants were killed in the strikes.

In a separate operation, 25 suspected al-Qaida members were arrested Wednesday in San’a, the capital, the Interior Ministry said. Security forces set up checkpoints in the capital to control traffic flow as part of a campaign to clamp down on terrorism.

Al-Alaimy, the deputy defense minister, said Thursday’s operations were carried out after security officials received information about al-Qaida plans to carry out suicide attacks in San’a against the British Embassy and foreign schools.

The strikes come a week after warplanes and security forces on the ground attacked what authorities said was an al-Qaida training camp in the area of Mahsad in the southern province of Abyan — the largest assault on al-Qaida in Yemen in years.

Al-Alaimy told parliament that 23 militants were killed in those strikes, including Yemenis, Saudis, Egyptians and Pakistanis. Witnesses, however, put the number killed at over 60 in the heaviest strike and said the dead were mostly civilians.

The central government’s lack of control of areas outside Yemen’s capital — places where many angry tribes are willing to take in al-Qaida militants — have raised U.S. fears that the beleaguered nation could collapse into chaos. Yemen not only lies next to Saudi Arabia and near the oil-rich nations of the Persian Gulf, it overlooks vital sea routes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The country is also the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and it was the scene of the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors.