US drone strike kills five in southern Yemen

Rasa - At least five people have lost their lives in an airstrike by a US unmanned aerial vehicle in Yemen.

News ID: 423855

Date: 24 September 2016 - 17:52

RNA - Local officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Saturday that the drone hit a vehicle carrying the five, who were claimed to be suspected al-Qaeda militants, in the central Yemeni province of Ma’rib the previous day.

It came a day after a drone strike in the neighboring al-Bayda Province killed three suspected Al-Qaeda members, one of them a commander.

Also on Saturday, Yemeni army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, launched a ballistic missile at the al-Jarba military base in Saudi Arabia’s southern border region of Dhahran Janoub, on Saturday, though no reports about possible causalities and damage were available.

Yemeni soldiers and allied fighters also fired several Katyusha rockets at a military camp in al-Rabu’ah town of the southwestern Saudi border region of Asir, killing an unspecified number of soldiers and inflicting heavy losses on Saudi forces.

The attacks were in retaliation for the Saudi war on Yemen.

Saudi military aircraft bombarded Kamaran district in Yemen’s western and coastal province of Hudaydah, with no immediate reports of casualties and damage available.

Saudi fighter jets also bombarded the Political Security Office in the northwestern province of Sa’ada as well as the Central Security Headquarters and an Air Force Base in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah.

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015, with the UN putting the death toll from the military aggression at about 10,000. The offensive was launched to reinstate Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a Saudi ally who has resigned as Yemen’s president.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said last month that the death toll from the Saudi military aggression could rise even further as some areas had no medical facilities, and that people were often buried without any official record being made.

847/940