The Pentagon said on 6 April that a small group of US military personnel has been deployed over the past two weeks in Yemen to aid UAE armed forces and the rest of the Saudi-led coalition.

In mid-April, the US said was considering a request by the UAE for military support to assist a new offensive targeting Al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

AQAP, considered a direct threat to the US for having planned to attack US airliners, has exploited the war in Yemen to gain control of a significant portion of the country.

“A US official confirmed that the Saudi operations center in Riyadh that had been focused on fighting Iranian-back Houthi rebels in Yemen recently took on the additional tasks of targeting AQAP inside Yemen,” said a report by US-based CNN.

The US military confirmed it conducted four counterterrorism air strikes against AQAP in Yemen since April 23, killing 10 Al-Qaeda operatives and injuring one.

The first strike on 23 April killed two operatives in the Marib governorate in central-west Yemen, while a strike on April 25 killed two in the Abyan governorate near the country’s southern coast and another strike the same day killed two operatives in the vicinity of Azzan. The final strike was launched on 28 April killing four Al-Qaeda operatives and injured one in Shabwah province, the US military said.

The latest peace talks between the rebel groups and the Yemeni government is ongoing in Kuwait, but have proven highly volatile. The groups resumed the peace talks on 7 May, following three days of suspension.

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad, UN special envoy for Yemen, has said the peace talks are continuing and are determined to reach an agreement.

“We agreed with the two delegations that the De-escalation and Coordination Committee (DCC) would investigate clashes on the ground… with the aim of protecting the ongoing peace talks from daily developments on the ground,” Ahmad said.

The UN estimates that the war has resulted in the loss of 6,400 lives, and injury in 30,500 others. UNICEF said 900 of those killed and more than 1,300 of those injured are children. The war has also resulted in the closure of 3,600 schools, resulting in 3.4 million school-aged children out of school.