US drone kills 2, Yemen officials say

A U.S. drone strike killed two people said to be militants in southern Yemen on Saturday, according to Yemeni military officials, making it the ninth such action in two weeks.

The strike, in Lahj Province, wounded two other suspected militants, one of them seriously, the officials said. The four had been traveling in a car in the area of Askariya. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media, said it was the first time an American drone had fired on this area of Lahj.

Nine strikes in Yemen in the past two weeks have been attributed to American drones. Those attacks have killed 38 suspected militants, Yemeni officials have said.

While the United States acknowledges its drone program in Yemen, it does not usually talk about individual strikes.

Washington recently flew diplomatic staff members out of Sana, Yemen’s capital, over fears of a terrorist attack. The United States, which is set to reopen diplomatic posts that were temporarily closed in recent days throughout parts of Africa and the Middle East amid a major terrorism alert, will keep its embassy in Yemen closed.

The Yemeni defense minister, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, met Saturday with the United States’ deputy ambassador, Karen Sasahara, and two American security officials based in Yemen to discuss security.

The United States considers the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to be the most dangerous threat to the United States of the various Qaeda-allied groups.

Al Jazeera