United States and Yemen

he United States and Yemen are taking on Islamic militants on the land and from the air amid fears that al Qaeda is exploiting the political chaos and leadership vacuum engulfing the unstable and impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.

Yemeni government forces are trying to wrest the southern town of Zinjibar from Islamic militants, and an American official said U.S. military-led airstrikes have resumed and top insurgents have been killed.

U.S. drone strikes had been conducted in the past in Yemen, but they had paused amid the unrest. CNN National Security Contributor Fran Townsend, a former Bush Homeland Security adviser, said the current airstrikes are an "indication of the strength and confidence" President Barack Obama has in the CIA, which directs the strikes.

"I think it's a resumption," Townsend said of the airstrikes." And I do think it appears to be an intensification. Some of that may be based on the threat environment and better intelligence."

Officials said neither strike was part of any change in policy or intentional increase in counterterrorist operations, but they were launched because of intelligence leading to the targets.

“These operations have not been stepped up,” one official said. “They are dependent on the availability of the right information at the right time.”

While not confirming the strike, CIA Director Leon Panetta said his agency and elite U.S. special operators were continuing to work with the Yemeni government to keep the militants at bay, despite the ongoing revolt aimed at ousting President Ali Abdullah Saleh. U.S. officials said al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was trying to exploit the situation to carry out further attacks.