The US provided firepower and other aid to Yemen in its strike this week against suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts and training sites within its borders, the New York Times reported. US President Barack Obama approved the military and intelligence support, which came at the request of the Yemeni government. It was intended to help stem growing attacks against American and other foreign targets in Yemen, the Times reported in its online editions late Friday. Officials said at least 34 militants were killed in the Yemeni strike Thursday in what was an unusually heavy assault as the Obama administration presses the deeply unstable country for tougher action against the terror network. Witnesses, however, put the number killed at over 60 and said the dead were mostly civilians, including women and children. They denied the target was an Al-Qaeda stronghold, and one provincial official said only 10 militant suspects died. The United States has repeatedly called on Yemen to take stronger action against Al-Qaeda, whose fighters have increasingly found refuge here in the past year. Worries over the growing presence are compounded by fears that Yemen could collapse into turmoil from its multiple conflicts and increasing poverty and become another Afghanistan, giving the militants even freer rein. Speaking to the AP, Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, denied the US launched missiles in the attack Yemen finds 4 Qaeda suspects in hospital SANA'A - Four suspected Al-Qaeda militants targeted in a government military operation this week have been found in a Yemeni hospital, the Yemeni Interior Ministry said Saturday. Government website “Sept. 26” also said that Saudi nationals had been among Al-Qaeda suspects killed in Thursday's operation. Yemen said Thursday that its security forces and warplanes had foiled a planned series of suicide bombings by attacking targets including an Al-Qaeda training centre in the southern province of Abyan and sites in Arhab district. The four Yemenis were found in a hospital in Aden and placed under arrest, the ministry said. Their families had taken them there after the attack in Abyan. Yemen's opposition accused the government Friday of killing dozens of civilians, including whole families, in the raids Thursday. US President Barack Obama called Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, saying the operation “confirms Yemen's resolve in confronting the danger of terrorism represented by Al-Qaeda for Yemen and the world”, Yemen's state media said.
