Overnight air strikes that residents said were carried out by US warplanes killed 23 suspected Al-Qaeda militants in mountains south of the Yemeni capital, security sources said on Saturday.

"Twenty-three Al-Qaeda fighters were killed in air raids launched late on Friday against their positions," one security source told AFP.

A police source gave the same death toll from the air strikes in a mountainous area of Al-Bayda province.

The sources said the raids hit three villages west of the provincial capital, also called Al-Bayda -- Al-Makhnaq, Al-Dooqi and Al-Mamdud.

Residents said the raids were carried out by US aircraft.

Yemen is the ancestral homeland of slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the jihadist network took advantage of a protracted anti-government uprising last year to seize large swathes of the south and east.

Washington has long made the country a major focus of its "war on terror".