The missile attack targeted a group of militants in al Jawf province near the Saudi border, one tribal source said, as the death toll was revised from three dead.
Witnesses said they saw three burnt bodies after the strike and that unidentified vehicles sped away from the scene.
An air raid northeast of Sanaa on Monday killed four suspected al Qaeda militants, Yemen’s interior ministry said, after tribal sources earlier said strikes by US drones killed two, apparently in reference to the same incident.
On Saturday, air raids attributed to a US drone killed nine suspected members of the group.
Tuesday’s raid brings to at least 32 the number of people killed in suspected US drone strikes since December 24.
Strikes by US drones in Yemen nearly tripled in 2012 compared to 2011, with 53 recorded against 18, according to the Washington-based think-tank New America Foundation.
Washington has stepped up its support for Yemen’s battle against militants of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which it regards as the most active and deadliest franchise of the global network.
The group took advantage of the weakness of Yemen’s central government during an uprising in 2011 against now ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, seizing large swathes of territory across the south.
But after a month-long offensive launched in May last year by Yemeni troops, most militants fled to the more lawless desert regions of the east.
from DAWN
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U.S. drone kills four al Qaeda members in Yemen -sources
from The Daily Star :: Lebanon News
January 22, 2013 09:34 PM (Last updated: January 22, 2013 09:38 PM)
By Mohammed Ghobari
SANAA: A U.S. drone killed four suspected al Qaeda militants on Tuesday in a strike on their car in northern Yemen as they drove away from a militant training ground, according to tribal sources and local officals, the fourth such attack in four days.
The United States never comments on strikes by its pilotless aircraft, which it has used to track down militants in Yemen for years. The Yemeni government tolerates such strikes but usually does not comment on the U.S. role in specific incidents.
Washington has scaled up action against al Qaeda in Yemen, where the group exploited widespread anti-government unrest in 2011 to seize swathes of territory in the south.
It was subsequently driven out by a military offensive in June last year.
The four men were travelling in a vehicle through the desert in the Yemeni province of al-Jawf, near the border with Saudi Arabia, a tribal source told Reuters, declining to be named.
"The strike targeted a gathering of al Qaeda members who had made the area a centre for training. One of the cars was hit and everyone inside was killed ... the others fled," a local official told Reuters, also declining to be identified.
Shoring up stability and security in Yemen is a priority for the United States and its Gulf Arab allies because of its location next to the world's top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, and to shipping lanes, and because it is home to one of the most active wings of al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is considered by Western governments to be one of the most dangerous arms of the global network founded by Osama bin Laden, and has attempted a number of attacks against U.S. targets.
Another four suspected insurgents were killed in a strike in central Yemen on Monday, while six more were killed in drone strikes in Maarib on Saturday and Sunday. A further 10 suspected al Qaeda fighters died in an explosion in a house in southern Yemen on Sunday.
But discontent at the drone strikes is growing. Earlier on Tuesday, a Yemeni cabinet minister criticised drones and urged a move to ground operations to avoid hurting civilians.
On Sunday armed tribesman, angry at what they said was a drone attack on an area inhabited by civilians, blocked the main road linking Maarib with Sanaa.
Earlier this month, dozens of armed tribesmen also took to the streets in southern Yemen to protest against drone strikes that they said had killed innocent civilians and fuelled anger against the United States.
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