Score another one for the good guys. A drone strike in southern Yemen has taken out 7 terrorists, including Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula's media chief.

RFE:

An American drone strike in southern Yemen has killed seven al-Qaeda-linked militants, including the media chief for the group's Yemeni branch.

The Yemeni Defense Ministry has identified the slain media chief as Egyptian-born Ibrahim al-Bana.

Tribal elders in the area say the airstrike late on October 14 in the southeastern province of Shabwa also killed the son of a prominent U.S.-born cleric slain in a similar attack last month.

The strike also killed Anwar al-Awlaki's 21 year old son.

Two things to note: First, our intelligence must be gangbusters lately in that part of Yemen. Whether we've just got better eyeballs on the ground or we have penetrated the AQAP doesn't really matter. We are hitting them and hitting them hard.

Secondly - and more worrisome - the fact that we've been successful means that AQAP leadership feels emboldened enough to show themselves in relatively exposed areas. This is a result of the continuing civil war in Yemen and a resulting breakdown in law and order that has allowed AQAP to make advances in towns and villages previously not open to them.

A mixed blessing, to be sure.