Yemen: Al-Qaida militants kill 8

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Suspected al-Qaida fighters killed eight members of the security forces Monday in two separate attacks in Yemen, one targeting a military convoy and the other a police station, security officials said, while U.S. drones were believed to have killed three militants.

Yemen's branch of al-Qaida is considered the most dangerous in the world. It took control of swaths of the country's south in 2011 before being ousted in an army offensive. Since then militants have staged attacks on security forces as the government wages numerous offensives to weed the group out, often with assistance from the U.S.

In two separate incidents, officials said that suspected U.S. drones killed three al-Qaida suspects and wounded four others in the northeastern Marib province and in the southern Shabwa province.

The U.S. routinely targets al-Qaida in drone strikes, but doesn't comment on each attack.

In the attack on the military convoy, the gunmen ambushed the traveling vehicles with heavy weapons, leaving seven soldiers dead before fleeing, a security official said.

Separately, suspected al-Qaida militants attacked a police station in the city of Ghail Bawazir, in the southeastern Hadramawt province, in an hour-long mortar attack. An official said one policeman was killed and a second was wounded early Monday

It was the first such attack since security forces drove al-Qaida militants out of the city last November, the official said.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.