Summary US military conducted a pair of air strikes against Al Qaeda operatives in central Yemen last month.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military conducted a pair of air strikes against Al Qaeda operatives in central Yemen last month, officials said Tuesday.
The first strike in the war-torn country was on July 8 and killed one Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) "operative," the US military s Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement.
A second strike on July 16 killed six AQAP operatives and wounded one.
"Al Qaeda s presence has a destabilizing effect on Yemen; it is using the unrest in Yemen to provide a haven from which to plan future attacks against our allies as well as the US and its interests," Centcom said.
Since Yemen s collapse last year, AQAP has exploited the chaos of fighting between pro-government forces and Iran-backed Huthi rebels to expand its control in southern Yemen, including seizing of the port city of Mukalla.
In May, the Pentagon acknowledged it had deployed some US troops to a fixed location inside Yemen to help Emirati forces there with "intelligence support."
