US News

US drone strike kills 3 al Qaeda suspects in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen — A US drone strike in southern Yemen Monday killed three al Qaeda suspects, a Yemeni security official said.

The strike hit the suspects’ moving vehicle in Hadramawt province and set it on fire, the official said.

The official said the bodies were found charred inside the vehicle and the suspects’ identification wasn’t possible. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to media.

It was the first drone strike since the al Qaeda attack on Thursday on the Defense Ministry compound in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, which killed 56 people.

Yemen’s al Qaeda branch had claimed responsibility for last week’s attack, saying the ministry complex housed “drone control rooms and American experts.”

The United States considers Yemen’s al Qaeda branch to be among the most active in the world.