[An Nahar] Weekend drone strikes in Yemen killed more than 40 suspected al-Qaeda krazed killers, including 30 on Sunday, days after the jihadist network's Arabian Peninsula offshoot vowed to fight against Western "crusaders."The United States is the only country that operates drones in Yemen, and President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has defended their use, despite criticism from rights groups who deplore civilian casualties.
On Sunday U.S. drones fired "several missiles" into a training camp run by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in the rugged Wadi Ghadina region in the southern province of Abyan
...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an
Islamic Emirateafter seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
, a tribal chief said.
"More than 30 members of al-Qaeda were killed and many others maimed," near al-Mahfad town, he said.
Abyan lies next to Shabwa province, another region of Yemen where al-Qaeda is entrenched.
Witnesses also said that a U.S. drone carried out the attack and that the most of the maimed were evacuated by members of the Islamist network.
A statement on the 26sep.net defense ministry website said the attack on al-Qaeda "training camps" killed "several" faceless myrmidons of various nationalities.
On Saturday a drone strike in the central province of Baida killed 10 al-Qaeda suspects and three civilians, according to the official Saba news agency. It did not say who carried out the attack.
After that strike, al-Qaeda faceless myrmidons cordoned off the area and evacuated dead comrades, tribal sources said.
They said all those killed on Saturday were low-ranking faceless myrmidons from the region.
An official statement on Saba said the dead were "dangerous elements" who had been plotting to carry out "attacks on vital installations and on politicians and military personnel" in Baida.
The statement said the suspects were also responsible for the murder of Baida's deputy governor on April 15.
The weekend attacks came less than a week after AQAP chief Nasser al-Wuhayshi pledged in a rare video appearance to fight Western "crusaders" everywhere.
"We will continue to raise the banner of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and our war against the crusaders will continue everywhere in the world," he said in the video posted online.