SANA'A — More than 10 suspected Al-Qaeda operatives were killed by an explosion in a house in south Yemen where they were making bombs and at least three others died in a drone strike, tribal and official sources said Sunday. A bomb ripped through a house in the province of Al-Bayda Saturday night, the state news agency Saba and a local official said. Three other suspected militants were killed in a drone strike in the central province of Maarib, also Saturday, tribal sources and the Ministry of Defense said. Yemen's government has been fighting a powerful branch of Al-Qaeda that took advantage of chaos in the impoverished state two years ago during a popular uprising against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is considered by Western governments to be one of the most active and dangerous wing of the global network founded by Osama Bin Laden, and has attempted a number of attacks against US targets. The house destroyed in Al-Bayda had been used for making bombs, an official from the area told Reuters Sunday. “We heard a massive explosion that terrified people and when we went to the house it was destroyed and everyone there was dead,” the official said. In Maarib, a pilotless plane carried out two strikes against a car, a witness said. “One of the strikes missed the target and the other hit the car and left the bodies of the three people in it completely charred,” the witness told Reuters by telephone from the area. He said unidentified people evacuated the bodies while tribesmen blocked the main road linking the capital of Maarib province with Sana'a Saturday after the strikes. The Yemeni Defense Ministry said in an SMS text message that a number of militants were killed in two air strikes but gave no further details. Earlier this month, dozens of armed tribesmen took to the streets in southern Yemen to protest drones they said killed innocent civilians and fed anger against the United States. — Reuters
