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United States Ramps Up Airstrikes Against Al Qaeda in Yemen</h1>
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<span class="byline" itemprop="author creator" itemscopeitemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemid="https://www.nytimes.com/by/eric-schmitt" style="font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 0.75rem; font-weight: 700; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; margin-right: 12px;">By <span class="byline-author" data-byline-name="ERIC SCHMITT" itemprop="name" data-twitter-handle="EricSchmittNYT" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/eric-schmitt" title="More Articles by ERIC SCHMITT" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="">ERIC
SCHMITT</a> NYT</span></span><time class="dateline" datetime="2017-03-04T00:18:36-05:00" itemprop="dateModified" content="2017-03-04T00:18:36-05:00" style="white-space: nowrap; font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 0.75rem; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin-left: 0px;">MARCH
3, 2017</time></p>
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WASHINGTON — The United States military on Friday carried out a second night of airstrikes against suspected Qaeda terrorists in <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/yemen/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Yemen." class="meta-loc" style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145);">Yemen</a> in
what Pentagon officials said was part of a larger campaign to roll back territorial gains the group has made in the past two years.</p>
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It was the most intense series of strikes ever against <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_the_arabian_peninsula/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula." class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145);">Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula</a>, or A.Q.A.P. In all of 2016, the United States conducted a total of 38 strikes in Yemen, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/" style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145);" class="">Long
War Journal</a>. Yet in the last two days, armed Reaper drones and attack planes conducted more than 30 strikes against Qaeda militants, equipment and safe houses across south-central Yemen, Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday.</p>
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The escalating offensive against Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen comes as a bit of a surprise. President Trump pledged during his campaign to accelerate efforts against the Islamic State — mostly in Iraq and Syria — and on Monday the Pentagon submitted its plan
to do just that. But during the first weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency, the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen has emerged as the White House’s most vexing terrorism challenge.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="444" data-total-count="1630" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; max-width: none; width: 570px;">
The Trump administration has been forced to defend itself against assertions that a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/world/middleeast/american-commando-killed-in-yemen-in-trumps-first-counterterror-operation.html" style="color: rgb(50, 104, 145);" class="">Special
Operations raid</a> in January of a Qaeda safe house in central Yemen — during which a member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 was killed — was a failure because little meaningful intelligence material had been seized. A military investigation was also ordered to
determine whether as many as two dozen civilians, including 10 children, died in the assault.</p>
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