US drone strike kills 13 'IS fighters' in Yemen

Thirteen suspected Islamic State group fighters were killed in a US drone strike in central Yemen, security sources said on Wednesday, as the US and six Gulf states announced sanctions against militants in the war-torn country.

The strike in Bayda province would be the second known US strike against IS in Yemen.

The first came just over a week ago, when the US military said it had killed dozens of jihadists at IS training camps in the same province.

The United States is the only country known to operate armed drones over Yemen, but its previous known strikes have targeted al-Qaeda.

IS has however risen to prominence in the country's civil war, targeting both government forces and Houthi rebels, which it considers heretics.

Washington has intensified its drone war against Yemen-based jihadists since US President Donald Trump took power in January.

Meanwhile, a Saudi-led coalition which entered Yemen's conflict in March 2015 to prop up the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi against the Houthis, has also turned its firepower on jihadists.

The Yemen war has killed more than 10,000 people since 2015, including many civilians, according to the United Nations.

Another 2,100 have died of cholera this year. 

On Tuesday, the top UN aid official arrived in Yemen on a five-day trip aimed at drawing attention to what his organisation has called the world's top humanitarian crisis.

The latest strike comes as the United States and six Gulf states announced sanctions on top Islamic State and al-Qaeda figures in Yemen on Wednesday, in the first joint action under the US- and Saudi-led Terrorist Financing Targeting Center.

The sanctions' targets include Abu Sulayman al-Adani, identified as the overall leader of the growing Islamic State operation in Yemen.

It also included the IS group's alleged assassinations chief, Radwan Muhammad Husayn Ali Qanan, and its main financier, Sayf Abdulrab Salem al-Hayashi, who owns a chain of supermarkets.

The move aims to freeze the assets across the Gulf and in US jurisdiction of 11 individuals and two entities which the countries say are key to the Yemen operations of the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP].

"This bold and innovative multilateral approach is needed because terrorism poses a threat to all of our nations. It is critical that we come together to combat this," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a speech in Riyadh.

"We coordinated this action with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar, who designated these advocates of terror under their own domestic authorities. This is the largest ever multilateral designation in the Middle East."

The TFTC was announced on May 21 as a joint effort to pursue the financial resources of officially designated "terror" groups across the region.

Agencies contributed to this report.