Two US drone strikes killed a total of nine suspected Al-Qaeda militants on Thursday, a Yemeni military official said, the sixth and seventh such attacks in less than two weeks as the Arab nation is on high alert against terrorism.
Meanwhile, a report from Washington quoted US President Barack Obama as saying that the core of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on its way to defeat, but insisted that the hard fighting against the terrorist group remains.
“Al-Qaeda’s top ranks have been hammered. The core of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on the way to defeat,” Obama told nearly 3,000 Marines in attendance at Camp Pendelton in California. “This is still a hard fight,” Obama said.
A UN report has said that Osama Bin laden’s successor as the leader of Al-Qaeda has struggled to unite its various factions. The report said Al-Qaeda’s Egyptian leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri had failed to rebuild the group’s core leadership in Pakistan.