U.S. military officials on Friday disclosed that four air strikes inside Yemen have killed 15 al-Qaida militants dating back to February and March.

Yemen is one of the terror group's primary strongholds in the region. The newly announced strikes bring to nine the total there so far in 2016, and highlight an intensifying U.S. mission that also includes a small team of American ground troops beside Yemeni and UAE troops fighting together .

Those forces are operating near the Yemeni port of al Mukalla, a safe haven for the group known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.

The air strikes, announced by U.S. Central Command, include:

In March 2015, the U.S. evacuated about 125 special operations troops amid the expanding civil war between Yemen's government loyalists backed by a Sunni Arab coalition and Houthi rebels supported by Iran. Shortly after that withdrawal, al-Qaida militants seized territory along Yemen’s coastline, including al Mukalla, and used lucrative oil exports to help transform the city into a wealthy ministate.

The small team of U.S. troops deployed in April to a “fixed location” in Yemen to provide support for operations led by the Yemeni military and the United Arab Emirates. Pentagon officials said those troops are providing intelligence support as well as airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, advice and assistance with operational planning, maritime interdiction and security operations, medical support and aerial refueling.

The deployment of those U.S. troops is "temporary," officials said, and both operationally and legally distinct from another U.S. military operation in Yemen, one that is providing support for a Saudi-led coalition backing Yemeni government troops. Under that arrangement, the U.S. is offering the Saudis intelligence, airborne fuel tankers and thousands of advanced munitions in the fight against Iranian-backed rebels.

YOL

Photo: An UAE soldier in Al-Mukalla in Hadramout