Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has posted online an audio message from its second-in-command, Saeed al-Shehri, whose death was announced by Yemen in January, a monitoring group reported Wednesday.

The 14-minute audio produced by AQAP's media arm Al-Malahem Foundation is accompanied by what the US-based SITE Monitoring Service said was a new photograph of the Saudi militant.

Shehri's death has been announced several times by the Yemeni authorities, most recently on January 24. The claim was neither confirmed nor denied by AQAP.

It was unclear when the latest audio message, posted on Tuesday, had been recorded, but in it Shehri speaks of events that took place after the announcement of his death.

He denounces an anti-terrorism conference held in Riyadh in February.

Most of the message is directed against Saudi Arabia, which Shehri says allows the US to launch attacks from its soil on "the faithful of Yemen."

"We must get rid of the Al-Saud regime by all means," he says. "The Saudi regime is the biggest US collaborator."

He was clearly referring to US drone strikes against Al Qaeda targets in Yemen which jihadists claim are launched from Saudi Arabia.

He also mentions protests by Islamists in Saudi Arabia demanding the release of Al Qaeda-linked prisoners, without specifying a date.

Shehri has long been been hounded by Yemen's security forces and has survived a number of attempts on his life.

Yemen's Supreme National Security Committee had in January reported that Shehri succumbed to wounds received in a counter-terrorism operation in the northern Saada province on November 28.

In October, he denied a September announcement by Yemen that he had been killed in a raid, in an audio message posted on extremist forums.

AFP