Yemen: U.S. drone strike kills 2 al Qaeda suspects day after 13 die in apparent accidental blast
SANAA, Yemen Yemeni security officials say a U.S. drone air strike on a car east of the capital of Sanaa has killed two suspected al Qaeda militants, a day after 13 suspected members of the same group apparently blew themselves up in an accidental blast at a house in the country's south.
The officials say three other men traveling in the car when it was hit Monday in the province of Maarib survived. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
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Yemen's government, aided by the U.S., has waged a campaign against al Qaeda's Yemeni branch. The group is considered among the world's most active, having planned a series of foiled or aborted attacks on U.S. territory.
The United States rarely comments on its military role in Yemen but has acknowledged targeting al Qaeda militants in the past.
The drone strike happened the day after a Yemen security official reported an explosion in the province of Bayda that killed at least 13 other suspected al Qaeda militants.
An official in Bayda's capital city of Radda says the explosion went off in a house owned by a known al Qaeda operative, Ahmed Abdullah Deif-Allah Al-Zahab. It appeared to be an accident.
Residents were barred Sunday from approaching the scene of the incident by militants with links to al Qaeda, the official said.
Early last year Al Qaeda's Yemen-based branch briefly seized the town of Radda, an outpost 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the capital.
The group is active in southern Yemen and has launched deadly attacks against the military since it lost control of key southern cities it overran in 2011.