Al-Qaeda militants killed 10 Yemeni soldiers in three simultaneous attacks Thursday on army positions in the central province of Bayda.

Al-Qaeda militants killed 10 Yemeni soldiers in three simultaneous attacks Thursday on army positions in the central province of Bayda, a military official said.

Eight extremists were also killed in the assaults, which prompted further clashes with the army, a local official said.

Ten soldiers were killed and others wounded, and four soldiers captured, the military source said.

Among the attackers was one wearing an explosive belt who was killed by soldiers, according to the same official.

A local said that the militants in Bayda had received reinforcements from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Ansar al-Sharia group, who arrived from the southern Abyan province.

Yemen's air force intervened with air strikes on the area, army officials said.

Farther east, a drone crashed in the remote Maharah desert near the border with Oman Thursday, a local government official said, without providing further details.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been blamed for most of the increasingly common hit-and-run strikes targeting military personnel.