Yemeni troops have killed the second-in-command of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in a raid in the east, the defence ministry's 26sep.net reported.

"The Saudi terrorist Said al-Shihri, al-Qaeda's number two, was killed in a quality operation by the armed forces in Hadramawt," the website said.

Six other al-Qaeda members were killed along with al-Shihri in the raid, the site said, without mentioning when the operation took place.

Al-Shihri underwent Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation Munasaha programme in 2007. But after completing the programme, he disappeared and later resurfaced as the second man in AQAP.

In 2010, al-Shihri called for the overthrow of the Saudi government. He escaped death in September 2011 during air strikes on the village of al-Mahfad in Abyan province in the south.