A suspected U.S. drone strike killed four members of al Qaeda's Yemen branch, including a local commander, two unidentified officials in Yemen said Saturday. A vehicle traveling east of the capital Sanaa was reportedly hit by the drone. Officials told Reuters the attack was carried out in Marib province, which is controlled by forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, late Friday. Abu Khaled al-Sanaani, the local commander of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was among the four dead, officials said. The latest attack was the second drone strike in two days to target a local commander of the militant group, which is regarded by U.S. officials as one of the most dangerous branches of al Qaeda.

Drone attacks killed eight men suspected of belonging to al Qaeda in southern Yemen on Saturday night, local residents said, as a U.S. campaign against the militant group goes on amid a wider civil war in the country. Two missiles hit the fighters who had gathered in courtyards in the villages of al-Hudhn and Naqeel al-Hayala, residents from the southern coastal province of Abyan told Reuters by phone. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has taken advantage of a war pitting the Iran-allied Houthis against forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to grab territory and operate more openly. The group has carried out attacks against the Yemeni state for years, plotted to blow up U.S.-bound airliners and claimed responsibility for the January 2015 attack in Paris on a French magazine that killed 12 people. The United States has kept up a drone campaign against the militants, although it evacuated the last of its military and intelligence personnel from Yemen in March last year.