Yemen pro-government fighters kill al-Qaida leader in south

SANAA(Yemen): Pro-government fighters in Yemen attacked and killed a senior al-Qaida leader and three people traveling in his convoy near a security checkpoint in the southern Abyan province on Friday, Yemeni officials said. Ali Abed al-Rab bin Talab, better known as Abu Anwar, was the extremist group's chief judge in Yemen's largest province, Hadramawt, which al-Qaida largely controls. He survived a suspected U.S. drone attack in 2014. Before the attack, Abu Anwar's convoy was heading to the southern port city of Aden, the officials said. Al-Qaida and Islamic State-linked militants have exploited the chaos of Yemen's civil war to make incursions into the strategic port city, where militant attacks targeting pro-government officials have escalated in recent months. Al-Qaida's Yemen branch is considered by Washington to be the most dangerous offshoot of the terror network. Yemen's conflict pits the country's internationally recognized government and the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition against the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, who are allied with Yemen's longtime former president.