New York : The Pentagon has estimated that dozens of people were killed in a massive US airstrike in Yemen, the second such mass-casualty strike undertaken by the US military this month.
The two strikes killed more than 200 people at what the Pentagon described as terrorist training camps.
Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, late Tuesday announced that the US had bombed a mountain redoubt in Yemen used by al-Qaida’s local affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), reports the Guardian.
Cook asserted that the training camp was used by more than 70 AQAP terrorists.
The Pentagon, however, did not provide details of where in Yemen the alleged camp was located.
“We continue to assess the results of the operation, but our initial assessment is that dozens of AQAP fighters have been removed from the battlefield,” Cook said in a statement, reports Guardian.
The US airstrike took place hours after multiple attacks killed over 30 people and wounded more than 200 in Brussels. However, reports say that it is unclear if there is any connection in the events.
The US airstrike on March 5 had killed at least 150 people in Somalia, what the Pentagon described as a terrorist training camp used by al-Shabaab.
Meanwhile, Micah Zenko, a counter-terrorism analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the US has carried out 575 airstrikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, killing around 4,000 people, both militants and civilians.
Zenko added that the two most recent strikes in Somalia and Yemen resembled more like a conventional-war airstrikes instead of targeted killings which the White House prefer using the term as lethal counterterrorism measures.
Meanwhile, the White House avoided commenting on the same.
“This strike was conducted consistent with the policy for counterterrorism direct action announced by the president in May 2013,” the Guardian quoted spokesman Maj Ben Sakrisson as saying. (ANI)