DUBAI — Yemeni forces killed six suspected al-Qaeda militants Friday, possibly including the network’s top military chief in Yemen, in an airstrike near the Saudi border, Yemeni officials said.
The assault — the fifth airstrike in Yemen targeting suspected Islamist extremists in less than a month — was the latest in what appears to be an escalating campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate that asserted responsibility for the failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.
Among those killed might have been Qasim al-Raymi, the branch’s senior military leader, who allegedly plotted to kill the U.S. ambassador and was linked to a 2007 suicide bombing that killed eight Spanish tourists.
The airstrike, at 2:30 p.m. Friday, targeted two vehicles near a village on the border between the northern Yemeni provinces of Saada and al-Jawf, security officials said.
It is unclear what role, if any, the U.S. might have played in Friday’s attack. U.S. and Yemeni officials say their growing cooperation on counterterrorism is limited to intelligence, training and equipment.
The U.S. has announced it will double its counterterrorism assistance to Yemen this year.
This is not the first time Yemen has said it had killed Raymi. In fact, even as Yemeni defense sources announced his death Friday, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington issued a cautious statement saying only that “six unidentified” al-Qaeda operatives had been killed and that Raymi “may have been also eliminated.”
