Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 
32 Yemeni Soldiers Killed, in Retaliation for US Drone Assassination of Fahd Al-Qussa'a

May 7, 2012

At least 32 Yemeni troops killed in militant attack

By Mohammed Mukhashaf | Reuters –

May 7, 2012

ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) -

Yemeni gunmen killed at least 32 soldiers on Monday when they stormed a military position in southern Yemen where militants control broad swathes of territory, a military official said.

Yemen has a seen a surge in violence in the south since President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi took office in February. The government has responded with air strikes and the United States has repeatedly used drones to kill militants.

The attack on Monday came hours after a suspected U.S. drone strike killed two men in a neighboring province, including one the government claimed as a senior member of (the Yemeni) Qaeda.

The military official told Reuters that gunmen attacked Yemeni troops outside the city of Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, killing at least 32 servicemen. He said they captured a number of soldiers and made off with weapons and ammunition.

At least 40 soldiers were wounded in the attack, the official and medical sources said. A spokesman for Ansar al-Sharia, a group that took Zinjibar last year, said his side captured 28 soldiers and a tank in the raid.

In a similar attack in March, militants killed about 100 troops in Zinjibar after Hadi took office.

Yemen's government and (this) group active in the south both said the missile strike hours earlier in neighboring Shabwa province killed Fahd al-Qussa'a, who had been convicted of involvement in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen's southern port of Aden.

Residents of Shabwa and the Ansar al-Sharia group, said the missile was fired from a U.S. drone. A drone strike last year killed a U.S. citizen who U.S. officials subsequently claimed had helped plan a failed attack on a U.S. airliner.

The use of drones has angered the public in Yemen as it has in other countries such as Pakistan, where Washington also uses unmanned aircraft to kill militants.

Washington has backed a power transfer that saw President Ali Abdullah Saleh replaced by his deputy in February, after a year of mass protests against Saleh. The United States now wants Hadi to unify the fragmented army and turn it against militants.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Sanaa; Writing by Joseph Logan)

 

Yemeni al-Qaeda leader 'killed in drone strike'

BBC, 7 May 2012, Last updated at 05:46 ET

A Yemeni wanted in connection with the 2000 bombing of the American warship USS Cole has been killed in an air strike, officials say.

A tribal leader in the east of the country says Fahd al-Qussa'a was hit by missiles fired from an unmanned drone.

His death was confirmed by (ansar al-Islam group) and Yemen's embassy in the US. At least one other man died in the strike.

Officials later said at least 20 (32 as latest) soldiers had been killed by militants in revenge for the attack.

A Yemeni military official told the AFP news agency that gunmen had attacked two army posts outside Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan province.

Officials told the Associated Press that 25 soldiers had also been captured. Government forces later killed 16 militants in shelling elsewhere in Abyan, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity.