Thirty suspected Death Eaters were killed as Yemeni aircraft pounded al-Qaeda positions between the southern provinces of Abyan...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an
Islamic Emirateafter seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
and Shabwa on Wednesday, a local official told AFP.
The aircraft carried out several strikes, the mayor of Mahfed town on the outskirts of Abyan and Shabwa, Yaslam al-Anburi, told AFP by telephone. "There were 30 deaths in al-Qaeda ranks for sure."
"Yemeni aircraft carried out a series of raids against concentrations of al-Qaeda gunnies, mainly in the Wadi Dhiman and Dayda valleys, killing 30 and wounding many others," he said.
Earlier, a tribal chief said three suspected Death Eaters were killed and four maimed in an air raid targeting a group of al-Qaeda gunnies in a desert region between Abyan and Shabwa provinces.
Yemen's military launched a campaign in May against al-Qaeda in the south which succeeded in ending more than a year of jihadist control over a string of towns and villages in Abyan and Shabwa provinces.
The group's fighters are believed to have retreated to safe havens in the country's mountainous regions in Shabwa, Marib and Hadramawt provinces where they enjoy tribal protection.
Residents of the area where the raids occurred said dozens of jihadists had been concentrating in the region since fleeing the villages and towns lost in Abyan and Shabwa.