US drones kill 2 AQAP fighters in eastern Yemen

map Evan Centanni (www.polgeonow.com)

By Bill Roggio - December 28, 2012 - LWJ

US drones struck for the third time in Yemen in five days, killing two al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters in an attack in eastern Yemen today.
The remotely piloted Predators or the more deadly Reapers fired missiles at a group of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters as they were traveling on motorcycles in the town of Shehr in Hadramout province, according to Reuters. Two AQAP fighters are thought to have been killed; their identities were not disclosed, however.

Today's strike is the second in Shehr in five days. On Dec. 24, US drones killed five AQAP fighters as they also were traveling on motorcycles in the town. A Yemeni jihadist later identified two of the five fighters killed as Abdullah Bawazir and Nabil al Kaldi. Both men had escaped from a prison in Mukallah in Hadramout in June 2011.

Also on Dec. 24, US drones killed a Jordanian and a Yemeni AQAP fighter in a strike in Rada'a in Baydah province. The Yemeni was identified as Abdullah Hussein al Waeli; he also escaped from a prison two years ago.
Hadramout is the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden's family, and the province has become an AQAP bastion over the past several years.

The US has stepped up drone strikes against AQAP in Hadramout this year. Prior to May, there were zero US drone strikes in the province. Since mid-May, the US launched seven attacks in Hadramout. Seven of the 41 drone strikes in Yemen this year, or 17%, have taken place in the province.

The Yemeni military claimed that Said al Shihri, AQAP's deputy emir and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, was killed in a drone strike in Hadramout on Sept. 5. But al Shihri later denied the reports of his death.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/12/us_drones_kill_2_aqa.php#ixzz2GR74W1fS

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US drones strike again in Yemen, kill 8 AQAP fighters

By Bill Roggio - August 31, 2012 - LWJ

US drones carried out the second strike in Yemen in three days, killing eight al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters as they were traveling in a car in eastern Yemen today.

The unmanned Predators or Reapers fired several missiles at a car as it traveled in the Hawra district in Hadramout province, according to Reuters. The Yemeni Defense Ministry claimed it carried out the strike, but sources told the news agency that US drones fired the missiles.

US military and intelligence officials would not comment on today's strike, but in the past have told The Long War Journal that the Yemeni military is not capable of launching precision strikes on moving vehicles, particularly at nighttime. The time of today's attack was not disclosed.

The exact target of today's strike has not been disclosed; no senior AQAP leaders have been reported killed in the attack. According to The Yemen Post, the fighters "were with their personal guns and explosives and it was believed they had planned to carry out terrorist attacks."

US drones have zeroed in on Hadramout province over the past month. Of the five strikes that have been recorded in August, four have taken place in the eastern province. On Aug. 29, two AQAP fighters, including a Saudi "militant," were reported killed in Hadramout. On Aug. 7, the US carried out two strikes in Yemen. Yemeni officials said that Abdullah Awad al Masri, a wanted bombmaker who is also known as Abou Osama al Maribi, was killed in one of the strikes in Hadramout that also killed two Egyptians, a Tunisian, a Saudi, and a Bahraini. And on Aug. 4, the US conducted another airstrike in Hadramout province.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/08/us_drones_strike_aga_2.php#ixzz25AFhDd9I

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Al-Qaida gunmen kidnap government official in southeast Yemen

ADEN, Yemen, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Suspected al-Qaida gunmen kidnapped a Yemeni government official in the southeastern province of Hadramout on Sunday morning, a police officer told Xinhua.

Ahmed Juman, a security director of the Reida district in the east of Hadramout's provincial capital of Mukalla, was snatched from a main road near his residence by unknown gunmen believed to belong to the al-Qaida terrorist group, the police officer said on condition of anonymity.

The abductors put Juman in a pickup vehicle, taking him towards the insurgents-controlled town of Azzan in neighboring Shabwa province, the officer said.

Meanwhile, a security official told Xinhua anonymously that a roadside bomb killed three civilians in Qutun area in Hadramout when it struck their vehicle.

"A civilian car ran over a landmine which was planted by insurgents on the main road in an attempt to target vehicles of the security forces, leaving three civilians killed," the official said.

On March 22, the al-Qaida militants claimed responsibility for killing a Yemeni intelligence officer after kidnapping him also in Mukalla.

Several security and intelligence officials have been assassinated or kidnapped in recent months in southern Yemen, where hundreds of al-Qaida militants have overrun several cities due to security vacuum during last year's political upheaval.

In recent months, militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch have carried out large-scale attacks and suicide bombings against government troops across the country's lawless southern regions.

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8 policemen killed by al-Qaida in southeast Yemen

ADEN, Yemen, April 12 (Xinhua) -- The Yemen-based al-Qaida wing attacked a security checkpoint in the southeastern province of Hadramout on Thursday, killing eight policemen, the country's interior ministry said.

The al-Qaida militants attacked a security checkpoint of the 23th Mechanized Brigade, killing eight policemen and injuring six others, the ministry said in a statement posted on tis website.

Several al-Qaida fighters were killed in the attack, it said without giving the exact number of casualties.

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