Via LWJ:

The US killed two al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters today in the first recorded drone strike in Yemen and Pakistan this year.

The remotely piloted Predators or Reapers fired missiles at a vehicle as it traveled in the Al Qutn area of Hadramout province, killing two suspected AQAP fighters, Reuters reported.

The identity of the two AQAP fighters has not been disclosed. No senior AQAP operatives or leaders are reported to have been killed. AQAP has not commented on today’s strike.

Hadramout is the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden’s family, and the province has become an AQAP bastion over the past several years. AQAP has regrouped in Hadramout and other provinces after losing control of major cities in Abyan and Shabwa provinces to government forces starting in late spring 2012. In May 2013, the Yemeni government claimed it foiled a plot by AQAP to establish an Islamic emirate in the Ghayl Bawazir area.