Drone Strike Kills Local Qaida Chief in Yemen

A drone strike in Yemen likely carried out by U.S. forces on Thursday killed a local al-Qaida chief and his guard, a security official said.

The strike hit a vehicle at Sawmaa in al-Bayda province, killing Jalal al-Seydi, who was the "emir" of al-Qaida in the town of Loder, in the neighboring southern province of Abyan, the official said.

The United States is the only country operating drones over Yemen, but it only sporadically reports on the long-running bombing campaign against the country's powerful al-Qaida branch.

The U.S. authorities consider al-Qaida's Yemen-based franchise, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, to be its most dangerous.

AQAP and the Islamic State group have exploited a power vacuum created by the conflict between the government and Shiite Huthi rebels to expand their presence in Yemen, especially in the south and southeast.