Al-Qaeda said Thursday that one of its top militants, Harith al-Nadhari who threatened more attacks on France after the Charlie Hebdo killings, was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.

Al-Qaeda said Thursday that one of its top militants, Harith al-Nadhari who threatened more attacks on France after the Charlie Hebdo killings, was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.

Nadhari and three other militants were killed in a January 31 "crusader American drone strike against their car" in Shabwa province of southern Yemen, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said on Twitter.

AQAP named the three others as Said Bafaraj, Abdelsamie al-Haddaa and Azzam al-Hadrami.

Tribal sources had said four suspected militants were left charred in their car in a drone strike that day in Shabwa.

Nadhari had threatened France with further attacks like those in Paris on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a supermarket that killed 17 people between January 7 and 9.

Another of the group's ideologues, Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, claimed the attack on Charlie Hebdo on behalf of AQAP four days later.

Western governments say it remains unclear if AQAP directly orchestrated the Charlie Hebdo attack, although they do believe one or both of the attackers, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, spent time with extremists in Yemen.

US President Barack Obama on January 25 vowed “no let-up” in Washington's campaign against terrorists in Yemen.

At least 11 Al-Qaeda suspected militants have been killed in three drone strikes in central and southern Yemen since Obama's statement.