Syrian defense minister meets Jordanian army chief in Damascus

DUBAI: Five Al-Qaeda members have been killed in a strike blamed on the United States in southern Yemen, two Yemeni security sources told AFP on Saturday.

“Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan province, which borders the seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government in Aden.

“The US strike on Friday evening north of Khabar Al-Maraqsha killed five,” said a second source, referring to a mountainous area known to be used by Al-Qaeda.

The second security source added that, though the names of those killed in the strike were not known, it was believed one of Al-Qaeda’s local leaders was among the dead.

Washington once regarded the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the militant network’s most dangerous branch.

Born in 2009 from the merger of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Houthi militants against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.

Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Houthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on militant-held areas of the country.

The Houthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.

The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.

LONDON: There will be no British Airways flights from the UK to Israel until at least August, the airline has said.

BA cited security concerns for the decision, having suspended flights to Tel Aviv in May following a Houthi missile attack that injured six people at Ben Gurion International Airport. The airline subsequently evacuated staff staying in the city to the Austrian capital Vienna.

A BA spokesman said in a statement: “We continually monitor operating conditions and have made the decision to suspend our flights to and from Tel Aviv, up to and including 31 July. We’ve apologised to our customers for the inconvenience.”

A message on the airline’s website for the route reads: “Sorry, we have no flights available. Please edit your search to find other routes.” The next scheduled flight from London to Tel Aviv is on Aug. 1.

Air France has halted flights in and out of Israel until at least May 26. Greek airline Aegean resumed flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, while US carrier Delta commenced daily flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Ben Gurion on Monday.  Both had suspended their routes following the Houthi attack.