Yemen's defense ministry has said that an al-Qaeda leader, Khalid Batais, was killed Friday in an airstrike in Hadhramout, in the east of Yemen.
A website of the defense ministry stated that Khalid Batais was killed in an airstrike that targeted nine al-Qaeda militants in Hurah district of Hadhramout.
It spelt out that the family of Batais identified him and received his body, pointing out that the bodies of other militants were not identified.
At least eight militants were killed in the airstrike in Hadramout province amid a continuous, massive hunt for Al-Qaeda operatives across Yemen.
Meanwhile, tribal sources said that an airstrike killed on Sunday five al-Qaeda militants and three women companions in Rada, pointing out that a militant chief, Abdul-Rauf al-Dhabab escaped unharmed.
They indicated that the airstrike targeted two cars and that a rocket missed the car of Dahab who is a local chief of Al-Qaeda.
After the Yemeni government announced its victory in early June, al-Qaida carried out a suicide bombing various governorates and killed the commander of Yemen's southern military region, Salem Qatan.
Although Yemen announced that it defeated al-Qaeda and dislodged its militants of southern towns, al-Qaeda militants are still existed in some remote mountains and areas of Abyan, local sources say.
Security officials said that the authorities foiled many plans to carry out terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda in the capital Sana'a and other major cities, affirming that they seized 40 belts packed with explosives in the past month.