Yemen: Two drone strikes kill 7 al Qaeda terrorists; al Qaeda kills 2 high ranking security officials

ADEN (Reuters) - Two drone strikes killed seven suspected al Qaeda militants in southern Yemen on Saturday, a local official said, nine days after U.S. President Barack Obama said he would only use such strikes when a threat was "continuing and imminent".

In two separate attacks, militants believed to be linked to al Qaeda killed two senior police officers in the eastern part of the country, a local security official said.

Washington views al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as the movement's most dangerous wing after it attempted to launch bomb attacks on international airliners.

The official said the seven were travelling in two cars on Saturday morning in the al-Mahfad district of Abyan Governorate in southern Yemen where the Islamist militant group has a strong presence, when the drones struck.

In eastern Yemen, Colonel Abdel-Rahman Bashkeel, head of the criminal investigation department in the city of Seyoun in the Wadi Hadramout area, was killed on Saturday afternoon by a bomb placed in his car, a local security official said.

Militants on a motorbike also shot and killed Brigadier-General Yahya al-Omaisi, commander of the police force at the Seyoun airbase, the official said.

He said both attacks carried the hallmarks of al Qaeda, which is believed to be behind a spate of recent attacks on senior police, security and army officers, including at least three incidents last week.

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