Yemeni airstrike kills 30 Al Qaeda members

CAIRO - An airstrike Thursday killed 30 men suspected of plotting attacks against Yemeni and foreign targets on behalf of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, a security official said.

The pre-dawn strike targeted a meeting of Al Qaeda members in eastern Yemen’s Shabwa province, an official from Yemen’s High Security Committee told Yemen’s state-run 26 September website (26sep.net).

The “preemptive” strike targeted a meeting of “brutal terrorists”, including leading militants Nasser al-Wahaishi and Said al-Shihri, to plan attacks against Yemeni and international targets and military installations, he said.

The men were planning to retaliate for raids in Yemen’s Abyan and Sanaa provinces that together killed some 34 people and led to the arrest of 29 others last Thursday, the official told 26 September.

Yemen’s parliament Sunday summoned officials regarding reports of a large number of civilian deaths from those attacks, the official news agency SABA reported.

The SABA report said parliament had urged the government to “enhance the accuracy of its targets to avoid error” in pursuing terrorists and insurgents.