A senior aide to Barack Obama flew into Yemen yesterday to meet the leader of a country battling with al-Qaeda insurgents that Washington believes have also targeted the United States, a Yemeni official said.
The visit of John Brennan, the US president’s counter-terrorism adviser, comes as Yemen is on a new offensive against Islamist rebels and after Washington said it had foiled an airliner bomb plot linked to al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate.
Washington has stepped up its drone attacks in Yemen since President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi took office in February, and the Pentagon said this week it had recently resumed sending military trainers into the Gulf Arab country. Brennan will meet Hadi “to reiterate holistic US support to Yemen”.
Forty-two people have been killed in heavy clashes between the army and al Qaeda-linked militants in the country’s south.
The military used warplanes and heavy artillery in its assault early yesterday on the town of al-Hurur in Abyan province, killing at least 30 militants, officials said. Al-Hurur is one of many towns in southern Yemen that have been under the control of al-Qaeda fighters since last year.
– (Reuters, AP)
