A US drone strike killed four Al Qaeda members in eastern Yemen on Sunday, a security official said.

The terrorists were targeted Sunday evening while travelling in a car in a desert valley of the eastern province of Marib, the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. He declined to provide further details.

Local media said the killed militants included an Al Qaeda leader who was identified as Hassan al-Aqeli.

Yemeni officials said the United States has recently escalated its drone strikes as part of anti-terror cooperation with the Yemeni government to help crush operations of the Al Qaeda  in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in the impoverished Arab country.

Yemen's southern and eastern provinces have witnessed increasing US drone strikes targeting Al Qaeda militants since President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi took office in February, after a one-year political upheaval that allowed the militants to capture several cities in remote lands. The militants were driven out from their hideouts in a US-backed offensive in June.

Meanwhile, the AQAP posted Sunday a 10-minute video on Islamic websites, in which its second-in-command Saeed Ali al-Shihri denied the statement of the Yemeni defense ministry which said Shihri was killed last month.