AFP - Strikes by the Yemeni air force killed three Al-Qaeda members, including the group's leader in Abyan, a security official in the southern province said on Tuesday.

"The leader of Al-Qaeda in Abyan, Jamil Nasser Abdullah al-Ambari, Samir al-Sanaani and Ahmed Amzarba were killed" in Sunday's raid, provincial security director Colonel Abdel Razak al-Marwani said.

Ambari, a 25-year-old from Aden, the main city in the south, was on an interior ministry list of 152 wanted militants.

The defence ministry's 26sep.net news website had earlier reported that two Al-Qaeda members were killed in an air raid against a "terrorist cell" in the Moudia region, 480 kilometres (298 miles) southeast of the capital Sanaa.

The air force targeted a suspected Al-Qaeda training camp in the same area on Monday, the defence ministry said.

A brief statement said the raids were carried out in Moudia, but did not specify whether anyone was killed or wounded in the latest strike.

A security official, who asked not to be named, said the disfigured remains of those killed in the strikes had been transported to the capital for DNA testing, and suggested the death toll could be as high as nine people.

Moudia residents that AFP reached by telephone said the raids caused civilian casualties but gave no figures.

Yemen has intensified operations against the local Al-Qaeda branch since it claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day.

The United States has reportedly supplied Yemen with intelligence and other support in its operations against the jihadists.

But US President Barack Obama has said he has "no intention" of sending in troops.