ADEN: A drone strike on Sunday killed five suspected Al Qaeda militants in the Yemeni province of Marib, east of the capital Sanaa, security officials said.

One official said a US drone had probably carried out the strike, which targeted a car in the province’s Saoud district.

The United States considers the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be the radical group’s most dangerous branch.

AQAP has flourished in the chaos of the country’s civil war, which pits the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against the Huthi rebels.

A long-running drone war against AQAP has intensified since US President Donald Trump took office in January.

An air raid he ordered that month killed a US Navy SEAL and several Yemeni civilians in Baida province, just south of Marib.

More than 8,000 people have been killed since a Saudi-led coalition joined the Yemen war on Hadi’s side in 2015.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2017