Use of IN clause within a DELETE command - MySQL
Yes, you can use IN() in the WHERE clause of a DELETE statement. 

There is no "IN clause" -- IN() is just a comparison operator, perhaps slightly disguised as something more sophisticated.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/comparison-operators.html#function_in

To illustrate what IN() is really doing, consider these examples in isolation.

mysql&gt; SELECT 1 IN (2,3,4); -- should be false
+--------------+
| 1 IN (2,3,4) |
+--------------+
|            0 | -- is indeed false
+--------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt; SELECT 1 IN (2,1,4); -- should be true
+--------------+
| 1 IN (2,1,4) |
+--------------+
|            1 | -- is indeed true
+--------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)


...and, as @ypercube has pointed out, the "where_condition is an expression that evaluates to true for each row to be deleted".