U.S. Airstrikes Kill 5 Suspected Militants in Yemen - BostonHerald.com
U.S. military aircraft launched strikes that killed at least five suspected militants in southern Yemen in one of the deadliest attacks since the Pentagon and CIA stepped up counter-terrorist operations in the impoverished Middle Eastern nation last year, U.S. officials said.
The attacks Tuesday in Yemen’s Abyan province targeted a meeting of members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a militant group whose leadership has been badly degraded in a series of U.S. air attacks, the officials said.
The aircraft fired missiles at a school where the suspected militants were meeting and at several vehicles, the officials said, with the main salvo coming from a fighter jet. News service reports estimated that a dozen people were killed in the attacks and another dozen wounded, but U.S. officials said they could not confirm those numbers.
The assault came hours after President Barack Obama gave a vigorous defense of CIA drone attacks against al-Qaida militants in Pakistan, publicly describing the program for the first time. He said such strikes were carefully targeted to avoid civilian casualties.