Yemen air raid kills 2 Al-Qaeda leaders
Posted: 15 March 2010 0704 hrs

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SANAA: A Yemeni air raid against a "terrorist cell" in the southeast of the country has killed two senior Al-Qaeda members, the defence ministry said early Monday.

"Our air force carried out a raid on terrorist elements who were planning attacks on vital installations (and) two Al-Qaeda leaders were killed," said a statement on the defence ministry's website.

It did not specify what installations were being targeted, but said that the air strike happened in Moudia region - around 480 kilometres southeast of Sanaa - which is close to the oil-rich province of Shabwa.

Yemeni authorities have intensified their campaign against the country's Al-Qaeda branch after it claimed a botched Christmas Day bid to blow up a US passenger plane over Detroit.

Earlier this month, a security official said 11 men were arrested in the capital Sanaa on suspicion of plotting attacks for Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda militants have previously targeted Western embassies in the city.

Security forces arrested three suspected members of Al-Qaeda on February 17 in Marib province, east of the capital and on January 16 the authorities announced the arrest of three other suspected Qaeda militants.

The previous day, an air strike killed six Al-Qaeda leaders, including the group's top commander in Yemen, Qassem al-Rimi, officials said.

And two days before that, a Yemeni official said security forces killed Abdullah Mehdar, an Al-Qaeda leader in Shabwa province in the east.

US Central Command chief General David Petraeus said last month that Yemen is the one part of the Middle East where Al-Qaeda remains a growing threat.

"Our assessment is that over the course of the last year or so, Al-Qaeda has been diminished in that area," Petraeus said referring to his zone of command stretching from east Africa through the Middle East to Pakistan and Kazakhstan.

The United States has reportedly supplied Yemen with intelligence and other support in its operations against Al-Qaeda.

In January, a group of Yemeni clerics called for a jihad, or a holy war, if the United States undertook direct military intervention.

"If any party insists on aggression, or invades the country, then according to Islam, jihad becomes obligatory," the clerics said.

US President Barack Obama has said he has "no intention" of sending in troops.

- AFP/sc