Two mid-level al Qaeda leaders were killed on Thursday in an apparent air strike on their car in a remote province of Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland, witnesses said. Yemen's Defence Ministry confirmed that two al Qaeda leaders had been killed in a province where the militant network is active, identifying them as two brothers, Musa'id and Abdullah Mubarak al-Daghari. But it gave no details as to how they died.
"The car was passing through the Abdan region in Shabwa province when a missile was fired at it, causing it to explode and burn completely. We learned afterward that two men were inside," one witness told Reuters, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Yemen has for three months been embroiled in a stand-off between President Ali Abdullah Saleh and pro-democracy protesters bent on forcing him out. A Gulf-brokered deal to resolve the crisis that would see Saleh eased out within a month collapsed last week when Saleh refused to sign. A government official said on Thursday that talks were still taking place through mediators to get the deal back on the table.