United States Ramps Up Airstrikes Against Al Qaeda in Yemen
By ERIC SCHMITTMARCH 3, 2017
WASHINGTON — The United States military on Friday carried out a second night of airstrikes against suspected Qaeda terrorists in Yemen
in what Pentagon officials said was part of a larger campaign to roll back territorial gains the group has made in the past two years.
Captain Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, said the strikes conducted on Thursday
and Friday were planned before the January raid and were part of a larger campaign in which planning started several months ago, during the Obama administration.
Mr. Trump in January authorized the Pentagon to conduct the kinds of strikes carried out this
week at the same time he approved the ill-fated Special Operations raid, Captain Davis said.
He emphasized that the airstrikes this week were "conducted in partnership with the government of Yemen
and were coordinated." After the January raid, Mr. Hadi’s government withdrew permission for the United States to conduct Special Operations ground missions, a decision prompted by anger at the civilian casualties incurred in the assault.
The Trump administration has been forced to defend itself against assertions
that a Special Operations raid in January of a Qaeda safe house in central Yemen — during which a member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 was killed — was a failure because little meaningful intelligence material had been seized.
Once correlated against information about known Qaeda terrorists — a process
that could take weeks or months — the data could be used to carry out strikes against militants, the official said.