FBI chief in Yemen as drone kills AQAP leader

SANAA | Tue Apr 24, 2012 5:52pm EDT

(Reuters) - FBI director Robert Mueller visited Yemen on Tuesday, pledging to help quell an Islamist insurgency, as security and government sources said a drone had killed a prominent al Qaeda leader linked to an attack on a French oil tanker.

In a meeting with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who took office earlier this year, Mueller promised the United States would support Yemen "with full force" in all respects.

"Mueller visits Yemen on an annual basis so this is not a special or secret occasion," said Mohammed Al-Basha, Yemen's embassy spokesman in Washington. "President Hadi emphasized that he is strongly committed to combating extremism and working with the U.S. to counter the mutual threat of terrorism."

Yemen's embassy in Washington said on Tuesday that Mohammed Saeed al-Umda, convicted in 2005 of involvement in the 2002 attack on the Limburg oil tanker, had been killed in an air strike on his convoy in the oil-producing province of Maarib on Sunday. It did not specify whether it was a U.S. strike.

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