The United States carried out a second day of air strikes against al Qaeda in Yemen on Friday, U.S. officials said, in the latest sign of increasing U.S. military focus on a group whose strength has grown during Yemen's civil war.
Since a January commando raid, the United States has shown a desire to both strike al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and to recover from what U.S. officials acknowledge has been an intelligence shortfall about the group since Yemen's civil war forced the closure of the U.S. Embassy in 2015.
"We have a lot of gaps in our understanding of the organization," a U.S. defense official said, adding the pullout of U.S. personnel two years ago "certainly did not help our understanding of the situation."
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said at a news briefing that the United States had carried out more than 30 strikes over the past two days in Shabwah, Abyan and Al Bayda provinces.
The U.S. military did not disclose how many al Qaeda fighters were killed on Friday although Reuters reported that Thursday's strikes, using manned and unmanned aircraft, left at least nine militants dead.
The U.S. military did not rule out further strikes in the days ahead.
"I don't want to telegraph future operations but this is part of a plan to go after this very real threat and ensure they are defeated," Davis said at a Pentagon news briefing.
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