BSS/AFP) - The number of Al-Qaeda members killed in strikes on southern Yemen blamed on the United States increased to nine, a Yemeni security source told AFP on Saturday.

The official in Abyan province, which borders the seat of Yemen`s internationally recognised government in Aden, said the strikes killed nine members of the group including a local leader.

The security official, who earlier said the attack had taken place on Friday evening in north Khabar Al-Maraqsha, added the strikes hit several locations in the mountainous area known to be used by Al-Qaeda.

"I saw five charred bodies at one of the targeted sites, as well as a burned-out car," a local tribesman told AFP, adding others killed in the strikes had been at another location.

Earlier, a second security official, who confirmed an initial toll of five Al Qaeda members killed in the attack, also said that while the names of those killed were unknown, it was believed one of the group`s local leaders was among the dead.

Washington once regarded the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the militant network`s most dangerous branch.

Born in 2009 from the merger of Al-Qaeda`s Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen`s war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Huthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.

Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Huthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on rebel-held areas of the country.

The Huthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.

The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world`s worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.