Yemen army kills AQAP second man: defence ministry

SANAA: Yemeni troops killed the second in command of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in a raid in the east, the defence ministry news website said on Monday.

"The Saudi terrorist Saeed al-Shehri, the second man in Al-Qaeda, was killed in a quality operation by the armed forces in Hadramawt," the 26sep.net news website reported.

"Six other terrorist elements accompanying him were also killed," it added quoting what it said was a "high-ranking source," without mentioning when the operation took place.

"Shehri's death deals a painful blow to what's left of the terrorist elements."

A tribal source told AFP that a ground operation had taken place in the province of Hadramawt, where the family of Al-Qaeda's slain founder Osama bin had its roots.

AFP however could not independently confirm his death.

Shehri escaped death on September 20 last year when US drones carried out several air strikes on the village of Al-Mahfad in Abyan province in the south.

He was released from Guantanamo in 2007 and was flown to Saudi Arabia where he was put through a rehabilitation programme.

But after completing the programme, Shehri disappeared and later resurfaced as the second man in AQAP, which has been repeatedly described by US officials as the most dangerous of the jihadist network's worldwide affiliates.

Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda branches had merged to form the Yemen-based AQAP, announced in January 2009.