SANAA, Nov. 7 — A U.S. drone strike targeted a group of al-Qaida militants on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Wednesday night, killing at least three terrorists, government officials said.

“Three terrorists, including local al-Qaida commander Adnan al- Qathi who is wanted for bombing the U.S. embassy in Sanaa in late 2008, were confirmed killed Wednesday night in a Yemeni-U.S. joint airstrike operation which targeted the militants’ vehicle near Sayyan village outside the capital Sanaa,” a local security official told Xinhua by phone. He declined to provide further details.

An official from Al-Daylami Air Force Base in Sanaa confirmed the airstrike on Wednesday night in a remote area about 40 km southeast of Sanaa, but said “the raid was not carried out by any Yemeni warplane.”

A Sanaa-based expert of Islamic group affairs, Abdulrazzak al- Jamal, told Xinhua that “local al-Qaida operative Adnan al-Qathi was killed along with two of his bodyguards, Rabiee Lahib and Radwan al-Hashidi, by a missile fired from a U.S. unmanned plane late on Wednesday.”