A drone strike targeting a car killed three suspected Al-Qaeda members, including a leader in the southern Yemen province of Abyan, local officials said Friday.

They said the apparent US strike was carried out late Thursday in the Sumaa area of the province, with the leader's body left "incinerated" and his two bodyguards also killed.

A similar drone strike on Sunday in Marib province, east of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, killed five suspected Al-Qaeda militants.

The United States, the only government to operate drones over impoverished country, considers the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to be the radical group's most dangerous branch.

AQAP has flourished in the chaos of Yemen's civil war, which pits the Saudi-backed government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi against Shiite rebels.