While US officials have been keen to announce across western media that Washington has regained control of the situation in Yemen through a comprehensive counter-terror strategy involving both US-led drone attacks from the air and increased Yemeni troops on the ground , reports from Yemen are pointing to a slightly different picture.
On Tuesday ABC News quoted a senior US official as saying that US drones had taken down four key al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen, all of whom were directly linked to "the recent threat that led to the temporary closing of diplomatic facilities across the Middle East."
He confirmed confident, “we got the operational guys we were after."
And while indeed progress have been made on the ground, at least as far as official reports are going, AQAP still remains a major security threat as its militants are retaliating to every drone and every arrest.
Security experts have also raised some serious questions as to the tactical effectiveness of drone strikes given the public backlash they are generating and the little impact they are having on crippling al-Qaeda's ability to do harm.
Often compared to looking for a needle in a hay stack, drone strikes have offered so far little results against al-Qaeda while generating much collateral casualties.
There have been 9 reported drone strikes since July.
On Tuesday, terror militants killed three Yemeni soldiers in Hawtah the regional capital city of the southern province of Lahj in well-organized attack against the military .
Maj. Gen. Mahmoud al-Subaihi, Commander of the fourth military region confirmed that his men had surrounded the terror militants (about 70 according to official estimates) and contained the situation.
Security officials have warned that al-Qaeda is trying to secure some strong bases in restive south Yemen where it knows the central government has limited influence due to political fragmentation and tensions over the southern issue.
Governor Ahmed Abdullah al-Mejeedi called on residents to cooperate with the authorities and forward information should they have any. Several families have already flee Hawtah over fear of further armed confrontations.