by Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
U.S. commando is killed, several others are wounded in the first military operation authorized by the new president • Trump: Intelligence gathered in the operation will help war on terror • Local medics say 30 people, including children, were killed.
A U.S. special forces raid on al-Qaida
headquarters in southern Yemen was authorized by President Donald Trump
Saturday with the aim of gathering intelligence about the terrorist
group, a U.S. military official said Sunday.
The official said American elite forces did
not seize any militants or take any prisoners off-site after the raid.
The Pentagon said the raid killed 14 members of al-Qaida in the Arabian
Peninsula, the terrorist group's regional hub. Medics at the scene said
around 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.
A U.S. commando was killed and three others
were wounded during the raid. Two more U.S. servicemen were injured when
an American military aircraft sent to evacuate the wounded commandos
came under fire and had to be "intentionally destroyed in place," the
Pentagon said.
Trump called the operation a success and said
intelligence gathered during the operation would help the United States
fight terrorism.
"Americans are saddened this morning with news
that a life of a heroic service member has been taken in our fight
against the evil of radical Islamic terrorism," Trump said in a
statement.
The gun battle in the rural Yakla district of
al-Bayda province killed Abdulraoof al-Dhahab, a senior leader in
Yemen's al-Qaida branch, along with other militants, al-Qaida said.
Eight-year-old Anwar al-Awlaki, the daughter
of U.S.-born Yemeni preacher and al-Qaida ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki, was
among the children killed in the raid, according to her grandfather.
Her father was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011.
The Pentagon did not refer to any civilian
casualties in its statement, although a U.S. military official said they
could not be ruled out.
The Defense Department said the raid netted
"information that will likely provide insight into the planning of
future terror plots."
The Pentagon did not say how the U.S. commando died, and the U.S. military official declined to give details.
The operation's goal was to gather
intelligence on al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, regarded as one of
the global militant group's most dangerous branches, the official said.
"The operation began at dawn when a drone
bombed the home of Abdulraoof al-Dhahab and then helicopters flew up and
unloaded paratroopers at his house and killed everyone inside," one
resident said. "Next the gunmen opened fire at the U.S. soldiers, who
left the area, and the helicopters bombed the gunmen and a number of
homes and led to a large number of casualties."
A Yemeni security officer and a local official corroborated that account.
In a message on its official Telegram
messaging account, al-Qaida mourned al-Dhahab as a "holy warrior," as
well as other slain militants, without specifying how many of its
fighters were killed.
American forces have not conducted any special
operations in Yemen since December 2014, months before nearly two years
of civil war rendered the country even more dangerous and offered
al-Qaida leeway to expand into more lawless areas.
The United States conducted dozens of drone
strikes in Yemen throughout Barack Obama's presidency to combat al-Qaida
in the Arabian Peninsula.
The local al-Qaida unit organized the Charlie
Hebdo magazine attack in Paris in 2015 and has repeatedly tried to down
U.S. airliners.
Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=39951
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