Blast, drone kill 13 al Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen

(Reuters) - More than 10 suspected al Qaeda operatives were killed by an explosion in a house in south Yemen where they were making bombs and at least three others died in a drone strike, tribal and official sources said on Sunday.

A bomb ripped through a house in the province of al-Bayda on Saturday night, the state news agency Saba and a local official said. Three other suspected militants were killed in a drone strike in the central province of Maarib, also on Saturday, tribal sources and the Ministry of Defence said.
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The house destroyed in al Bayda had been used for making bombs, an official from the area told Reuters on Sunday.

"We heard a massive explosion that terrified people and when we went to the house it was destroyed and everyone there was dead," the official said.

In Maarib, a pilotless plane carried out two strikes against a car, a witness said.

"One of the strikes missed the target and the other hit the car and left the bodies of the three people in it completely charred," the witness told Reuters by telephone from the area.

He said unidentified people evacuated the bodies while tribesmen blocked the main road linking the capital of Maarib province with Sanaa on Saturday after the strikes.

The Yemeni Defence Ministry said in an SMS text message that a number of militants were killed in two air strikes but gave no further details.
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from REUTERS
SANAA | Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:52pm GMT
(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Sami Aboudi, Alison Williams and Jason Webb)

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from DAWN:

SANAA: Three US drone strikes killed eight people, including at least four suspected members of Al Qaeda, in the Yemen province of Marib, a tribal chief and witnesses said on Sunday.

One raid late on Saturday targeted a vehicle transporting four suspected members of the extremist network in Wadi Abida, east of the city of Marib, 170 kilometres east of Sanaa, the tribal source said.

“The bodies of the four dead were charred,” he said, requesting anonymity, adding that only the body of Ismail bin Jamil, a local Al Qaeda chief, was identified.

A witness said that car was engulfed in flames.

Another raid struck a vehicle in the same area killing four passengers from Al-Haytak clan, part of the Abida tribe, the source said without specifying their relation to Al Qaeda.

A raid earlier in the evening targeted another vehicle transporting four people, but a rocket missed the car allowing the passengers enough time to flee, a witness said.

Posted in: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, alqaeda, AQAP, Drones, Marib, Yemen