Sanaa — Yemen has asked the United States to supply it with drones, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said on Thursday, Aug. 22, to help it fight an al-Qaeda threat that recently forced Western countries to temporarily close diplomatic missions in Sanaa.

State news agency Saba also quoted Hadi as telling police cadets that 40 suspected al-Qaeda militants had been killed in recent counter-terrorism operations and vowed to keep fighting the Islamist extremists, until they lay down their weapons.

“The drones that are conducting operations are part of the cooperation between us and the United States,” Hadi told the cadets.

He said Yemen had allowed the United States to undertake such operations, because his country did not possess such technology to carry out “these precise military missions.”

“I have discussed the issue of helping us acquire this technology with the U.S. administration,” Saba quoted Hadi as saying, adding that the Yemeni army was capable of using drones.