Yemen air strikes kill 23 suspected Qaeda militants

Overnight air strikes that residents said were carried out by US warplanes, killed 23 suspected Al-Qaeda militants in mountains south of the Yemeni capital, security sources said on Saturday. \"Twenty-three  al-Qaeda fighters were killed in air raids launched late on Friday against their positions,\" one security source told AFP. A police source gave the same death toll from the air strikes in a mountainous area of al-Bayda province. The sources said the raids hit three villages west of the provincial capital, also called al-Bayda -- al-Makhnaq, al-Dooqi and al-Mamdud. Residents said the raids were carried out by US aircraft. Yemen is the ancestral homeland of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the jihadist network took advantage of a protracted anti-government uprising last year to seize large swathes of the south and east. Washington has long made the country a major focus of its \"war on terror\".