“A drone, likely American, fired several rockets at a group of Al-Qaeda members northwest of Jaar killing all of them,” said the official, adding seven bodies had so far been recovered.
The United States is the only country that operates drones in the region.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that “several bodies” had been identified, including one belonging to Nader Al-Shadadi, Al-Qaeda’s leader in Jaar.
According to the official, Al-Qaeda militants have been trying to position themselves near Yemen’s main southern cities to carry out operations against the army and the Popular Resistance Committees, local pro-army militias.
Witnesses said, meanwhile, that hundreds of Jaar’s residents, both men and women, gathered in front of the headquarters of the Resistance Committees in Jaar and fired into the air to celebrate Shadadi’s death.
One resident told AFP that Shadadi, a Jaar resident himself, “had brought great harm to our city and he is responsible for all the devastation and the war” in the area.
In May, the army launched an all out offensive against Al-Qaeda in the southern of province of Abyan, forcing them to retreat from major strongholds including Jaar and Abyan’s capital Zinjibar.
The campaign was backed by US drones which in recent months have been deployed in strikes against Al-Qaeda targets in the south and east of the country.
Thursday’s strike was the second such drone attack this month.
Separately, a shell fired accidentally at an army weapons depot in the Yemeni capital killed two people and wounded seven others on Thursday, a security official told AFP.
“Initial information indicates that a shell was (accidentally) fired at the weapons depot” from a nearby military facility where troops “were training,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
One of the victims was a soldier while the other was a civilian who lived near the depot. Of the seven wounded, five were soldiers and two were civilians.
Witnesses said the shell that struck the weapons depot set off a series of explosion which rang out across the city and large plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the site.
Debris and shrapnel from the blast spilled into surrounding neighborhoods, they said.
The shell hit a barracks under the command of General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, who had joined last year a popular uprising against now ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
