The air raid targeted a vehicle in the Khab Al Shath area near Al Jawf, the source said, adding that suspected Qaeda member Hassan Al Saleh Huraydan, his brother and three others were killed.
Witnesses said that three raids followed the first strike, but they did not provide details about the targets.
American drones frequently conduct strikes against suspected militants as part of Washington’s war on the extremists’ network across several countries, and in support of Yemen’s war on radicals.
Two air strikes last week in the southern province of Abyan killed seven suspected members of Qaeda and wounded two more.
Separately, a Yemeni security official said on Sunday that one protester has been killed and 10 people injured, including four guards, in clashes with Shiite protesters. They were demanding the release of political detainees.
The official said protesters fired at guards while trying to storm intelligence headquarters in Sanaa on Sunday. “Ten people have been wounded from both sides,” the official said, adding that the local police responded when rebels attacked the headquarters with automatic weapons.
The armed men were among a crowd of about 500 Zaidis who staged a protest outside security headquarters to demand the release of some members of their community, he said.
He said some of those being held by the authorities are “suspected of (sharing) intelligence with Iran.”
The Zaidi rebels, also known as Huthis after their leader Abdel Malek Al Huthi, had rebelled in 2004 against the government of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, accusing it of marginalising them politically and economically.
Fighting between them and Yemeni forces killed thousands of people before a ceasefire was reached in February 2010.
The Zaidis are participating in the ongoing national dialogue launched in March to discuss the impoverished country’s main problems, including the issue of Huthi rebellion.
Kuwaiti MP threatens to grill health minister over ‘fake’ stents
Kuwait Times: MP Faisal Al-Kandari yesterday called on Health Minister Mohammad Al-Haifi to step down or he will file to grill him at the start of the next parliamentary term late October, alleging that the minister has sanctioned defective stents for heart patients which pose a risk to their lives.
Speaking at a press conference, Kandari, who has been targeting the health minister for some time, displayed stents manufactured by a US company that are normally used for heart patients to ensure blood flow in the main arteries of the heart.
The lawmaker alleged that the minister has sanctioned a shipments of stents manufactured by a British company which is not specialized in this field, and claimed that these stents could kill heart patients because they are defective.
He said that the defective product did not pass through the medical stores of the ministry as required by normal procedures, but were sent directly to the local government hospital of Mubarak Al-Kabeer in Jabriya.
Kandari appealed to all heart patients who installed stents at the hospital to see him in the National Assembly. He called on the health minister to resign or he will be grilled at the start of the next term in October. He also called on MPs to form a fact-finding committee to probe the allegations.
Meanwhile, former opposition MPs yesterday strongly criticized the Assembly for sending a parliamentary delegation to Iran despite the state’s alleged involvement in backing the Syrian regime and after the conviction of an Iranian spy cell in Kuwait last month.
Former MP Abdullatif Al-Ameeri said that if members of the Assembly had any feeling to the massacres being committed against “our Syrian brothers” under Iranian patronage, they would not have formed a delegation to visit Tehran.
“Iran’s hands are full with Syrian blood and the Kuwaiti judiciary has proved the Iranian involvement in spying and plotting terrorist attacks in the country and still members of the single-vote Assembly are visiting it,” Ameeri said.
He however thanked God because “this Assembly represents only a minority of the Kuwaiti people whose majority are convinced that Iran poses a real danger against Kuwait”.
The delegation is headed by MP Ahmad Al-Mulaifi and includes Shiite MPs Adnan Abdulsamad, Ahmad Lari and Abdulhameed Dashti, in addition to MP Saud Al-Huraiji. The delegation began the visit on Saturday.
Former MP Mohammad Al-Dallal said the visit represents a “major insult and humiliation” against the struggle of the Syrian people and it gives a wrong message, especially after the final verdict against the Iranian spying cell.
