More than 80 Yemeni soldiers have been killed and scores injured in a missile and drone attack blamed on Houthi rebels in central Yemen, medical and military sources said Sunday.

Seven suspected al Qaeda militants were killed by a drone strike in central Yemen on Wednesday, residents and local officials said.

Malaysia's most-wanted member of the Islamic State militant group has been killed in Syria, police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said on Monday, citing intelligence information.

Five suspected members of Yemen's Al-Qaeda branch were killed on Sunday in what local authorities said was a US drone strike east of the capital Sanaa.

Al-Qaeda has confirmed that top leader Abu Khayr al-Masri, believed to be the organisation's number two, was killed in an air strike by the US-led coalition in Syria.

A drone strike, likely carried out by US forces, has killed three suspected Al-Qaeda members in southern Yemen, local security sources said on Wednesday.

A presumed US drone strike in southern Yemen killed three Al-Qaeda suspects on Tuesday, a security official and a tribal source said.

The Afghan Taliban on Wednesday announced Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new chief, elevating a low-profile religious figure after officially confirming the death of Mullah Mansour in a US drone strike.

A suspected US drone strike killed a local leader in Al Qaeda and five of his aides in southern Yemen, as Yemeni and Emirati troops pressed their offensive against the militant group.

Dozens of fighters loyal to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) were killed in clashes in southern Yemen, residents and a military source said, while a drone strike killed two others further north.

Two suspected US drone strikes killed 12 militants overnight in southern Yemen, residents said on Thursday, including a top al Qaeda commander who may have been the new leader of Islamic State in Yemen.