A former Guantánamo Bay inmate was killed in a US airstrike in Yemen last week, as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, the Pentagon has announced.

“We can confirm the death of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, Yasir al-Silmi,” Navy Capt Jeff Davis said on Monday.

Silmi had been incarcerated at the notorious US military prison in Cuba in 2002 through 2009.

The Pentagon did not immediately have additional details on Silmi’s case, but Davis said he was not considered a “high-value” target.

Republican lawmakers repeatedly blocked then president Barack Obama’s efforts to shut Guantánamo and pointed to former detainees returning to the fight as proof inmates should remain locked up there.

Silmi died on 2 March in the same strike that killed Usayd al-Adnani, a “long-time explosives expert who served as the organization’s emir within the Abyan governorate”, Davis said.

The US has conducted more than 40 strikes against AQAP in Yemen since ramping up operations five nights ago.

None of the strikes have been conducted based on intelligence gathered in a botched US raid in January, the first authorized by Donald Trump, in which multiple civilians and a Navy Seal were killed.

Two years of civil war in Yemen have allowed AQAP, which the US regards as the extremists’ most dangerous branch, to consolidate its grip on territory in southern and eastern Yemen.