Drone raid kills two ‘al-Qaeda’ militants in Yemen

A suspected U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed two Al-Qaeda militants and destroyed an arms cache on Sunday, a security official and witnesses said.

The raid targeted a house in Wadi Abida, in the central province of Marib, where the two unnamed militants were killed, the official said, requesting anonymity.

He said an arms cache in the house also exploded.

Witnesses said an unmanned drone conducted the air raid, just like in most U.S. air strikes that target Al-Qaeda suspects in the Arabian Peninsula nation, which is home to Al-Qaeda's most active branch.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is led by Nasser al-Wuhayshi.

In July 2011, he reaffirmed AQAP's allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of the worldwide Al-Qaeda network since the killing of its founder, Osama bin Laden, in May of the same year.

U.S. drones strikes in Yemen nearly tripled in 2012 compared with 2011, from 18 to 53, according to the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank.