FBI director Robert Mueller has visited Yemen, pledging to help quell an Islamist insurgency there, as security and government sources said that a US drone had killed a prominent al-Qaeda leader linked to a 2005 attack on a French oil tanker.
In a meeting with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who took office earlier this year, Mr Mueller promised yesterday that the United States would continue to support Yemen “with full force” in all respects.
Separately, the Yemeni embassy in Washington said yesterday that Mohammed Saeed al-Umda, convicted in 2005 of involvement in an attack on the Limburg oil tanker, had been killed in an air strike on his convoy in the oil-producing province of Maarib on Sunday. It did not specify whether it was a US strike.
Umda was described by the embassy as Yemen’s fourth-most wanted man.
Exploiting mass protests against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33 years in office, militants linked to al-Qaeda last year seized large swathes of territory in southern Yemen.
Yemen’s army, which split into two factions during the uprising that eventually unseated Saleh, has been battling to get the upper hand against the militants. – (Reuters)