US drone kills two in southern Yemen as refugee outflow gains momentum
A Yemeni tribal source says two suspected members of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as AQAP, were killed in a US drone strike in southern Yemen.
The source, requesting anonymity, said Friday that the aircraft struck a vehicle in Habban district of Shabwah Province during the late hours of Thursday, the same day when dozens of refugees fled the ongoing Saudi airstrikes against Yemen for Djibouti.
The source identified one of the victims as Khaled Atef, a cousin of the shadow chief of al-Qaeda in the province.
On April 14, AQAP announced that one of its senior members, Ibrahim al-Rubaish, had been killed along with four comrades in a similar drone attack.
Rubaish was held in extrajudicial detention in the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He was released into the custody of Saudi authorities and then escaped in 2006.
The 35-year-old terrorist later joined AQAP in Yemen, where he was the main ideologue of and theological adviser to the Takfiri militant group. Rubaish had a 5-million-dollar bounty on his head.
The al-Qaeda militants have exploited the volatile atmosphere and the breakdown of security in Yemen since Saudi Arabia’s air campaign started on March 26, without a UN mandate, in a bid to restore power to the fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
Thousands of Yemeni refugees fleeing the Saudi airstrikes are seeking shelter in the Horn of Africa.
Nearly 350 refugees arrived at a temporary refugee camp of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Djibouti’s small port town of Obock on Thursday.
According to Yemeni sources, over 2,600 people have been killed in the Saudi aggression over the past three weeks.
The humanitarian situation in Yemen is rapidly deteriorating as people face shortage of food, water, fuel and vital drugs.
International humanitarian agencies speculate that tens of thousands more may flee Yemen in the coming months amid the worsening situation.
MP/HSN/SS
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