Members of the U.S. Navy's elite SEAL Team 6 killed seven militants in central Yemen during an early Tuesday raid on a compound associated with al-Qaida, U.S. military officials said.
It was the first ground raid in Yemen that the military has acknowledged since Navy SEALs carried out a similar attack in late January -- the first such operation authorized by President Donald Trump. One Navy SEAL team member died and three others were injured in that mission, and as many as 25 civilians were killed.
In a statement after the operation, the U.S. Central Command said the latest raid targeted a compound in the governorate of Marib that was linked to the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.
"During this operation, U.S. forces killed seven AQAP militants through a combination of small-arms fire and precision airstrikes," the statement said, referring to strikes by drones, helicopters or attack planes.
Col. John Thomas, a Central Command spokesman, said in a telephone interview afterward that the raid was intended to seize potentially important information from the compound -- typically electronic devices such as computers, hard drives and cellphones -- and was not an attempt to kill or capture a particular individual.
Since the raid on Jan. 29, U.S. commandos, sometimes working in concert with special operations forces from the United Arab Emirates and local Yemeni allies on the ground, have carried out several clandestine raids that the military calls "site exploitation" missions.
These missions are designed to provide the U.S. military with more information about al-Qaida leadership and operations, as well as insights into other extremist groups in the country. The Central Command statement said the raid was conducted with the support of the beleaguered Yemeni government, which has been fighting a two-front war: one with Arab allies against Houthi rebels in the western part of the country, and another against al-Qaida militants in the country's central and eastern regions.
Thomas said it was too early to tell whether the early-morning raid on Tuesday was successful. He said there were no indications of U.S. casualties.
Even after the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, U.S. counterterrorism officials have said the al-Qaida franchise in Yemen poses the most direct threat to the United States, largely because of its proven ability to develop plots to smuggle hard-to-detect bombs aboard passenger airliners bound for the U.S. So far, three such plots have been thwarted.
Seeking to intensify pressure on the militants, Trump authorized the earlier SEAL Team 6 raid in Yemen just days after taking office. He also loosened restrictions on which targets the U.S. military could attack in Yemen without prior White House approval.
A Section on 05/24/2017