The drone strike shot through the afternoon sky and slammed into the white Suzuki jeep carrying three al Qaeda militants along a remote road in Yemen’s Marib province, sending up a ball of fire and killing the passengers.

Instead of the standard silence surrounding such top-secret U.S. attacks on Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, the shadowy group sent photos of the charred vehicle and detailed obituaries to reporters within hours. One fighter was engaged, another, the father of a little girl.

The dispatch was part of a new AQAP media strategy, providing real-time reports on sensitive U.S. counterterrorism operations in Yemen to distribute the militants’ version of events in the hotly contested realm of cyberspace.

Since its establishment, AQAP has engaged with the media on its own terms, often through carefully timed video releases. But it has struggled to keep up as rivals in the jihadist world and the U.S. government adopt tools such as Twitter.

Leading the fledgling publicity operation is AQAP’s first easily accessible media liaison. He explained that the goal is to dispel misconceptions about the group that the U.S. views as the terrorist organization’s most dangerous affiliate.

“We believe we are misunderstood as a result of the continuing American propaganda. That’s why we want to counter the U.S. government’s narrative,” the liaison said, asking to remain nameless so that only the group’s top leaders serve as the public face for al Qaeda.

“Our fight against the U.S. isn’t about oil, or because we hate Americans for being Americans. That’s the way congressmen and analysts in America like to frame it. There are reasons behind our resistance, such as the U.S. support to Israel and its support to corrupt regimes in the Muslim world, its unjust invasions and crimes…. So as long as these reasons remain, our jihad will continue.”

Another aim of AQAP’s new media strategy is vying with Syrian-based Islamic State for pre-eminence in the jihadist world. Islamic State split from al Qaeda in 2013 and has since shot to prominence.

Among jihadist groups, Islamic State has set the pace in media savvy, producing slickly packaged videos featuring fighters speaking with Western accents praising life in the group’s territory and administering Twitter accounts in French, German and even Albanian.

On the media front, at least, AQAP is playing catch up, said Rami Khouri, a Beirut-based analyst.

“Clearly, the competition with the growing field of Islamists is one of the driving reasons behind this [AQAP] strategy. They want to make sure they are major players in the media and blowing up things is no longer enough in their eyes,” Mr. Khouri said.

Since it was founded in the late 1980s by Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, along with its affiliates, has communicated to the world mainly through rambling videotaped commentaries released often weeks after the events they assess have taken place.

Delivered in archaic Arabic by graying leaders, they are crude by comparison to today’s Islamic State propaganda productions, which feature the punchy prose and computer-generated graphics with the feel of the latest videogames.

AQAP signaled its more ambitious media strategy late last year when Nasser al-Ansi, a top leader, held the group’s first question-and-answer session online with foreign reporters and AQAP members and admirers.

Questions ranging from proper religious practice to the authenticity of documents seized by U.S. Special Forces after they killed bin Laden were submitted on Twitter using assigned Arabic and English hashtags. Mr. Ansi replied to the questions in four videos.

Since then, AQAP has made further innovations. With drones almost constantly monitoring its strongholds in Yemen, it can no longer rely on couriers to deliver video or audio statements to regional media outlets. Now, it uses secure text messaging, which enables it to respond to the fast-moving news cycle, as its leaders prepare more detailed and comprehensive statements.

The text application also provides AQAP with a more reliable means to disseminate its message, as Twitter accounts are taken down as quickly as they appear.

AQAP began aggressively targeting English-speaking recruits in 2010 when it launched Inspire Magazine, the brainchild of Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born recruit who issued video statements in American-accented English. Mr. Awlaki kick-started an intense recruitment drive for international jihadists. He inspired the perpetrator of the 2009 Fort Hood attack in Texas, where a U.S. Army Major opened fire on his colleagues, killing 13. A U.S. airstrike killed Mr. Awlaki in 2011 in Yemen.

AQAP’s missives are now more frequently circulated in English as it vies with other jihadist groups for Western recruits, saidCharles Schmitz, a professor at Towson University and former translator at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

“The al Qaeda [operatives] in Guantanamo really believed that God was on their side and that they would have real legitimacy if they just had the opportunity to explain themselves,” Mr. Schmitz said.

The U.S. views AQAP’s use of English as a threat, an advantage for global recruitment and psychological terror. For journalists, the organization’s English-speaking liaison is a source of uncorroborated reports about the U.S. antiterror campaign being fought in the shadows in far-flung countries, led by night raids and unmanned drones.

While AQAP’s media operation isn’t yet on a par with Islamic State’s, it is increasingly adept at getting out the group’s message and extending its reach.

When the brothers Chérif and Said Kouachi attacked the Paris offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, AQAP’s media liaison contacted reporters to claim responsibility within two days.

That was followed nearly a week later by a taped, carefully polished formal defense of the assault from Mr. al-Ansi that was replete with religious references.

The organization’s more sophisticated use of the media is AQAP’s reminder to the U.S. that it is “a snake with many heads. You can cut off a head but we’re an ideology and we will survive,’” Mr. Schmitz said of the group.

WSJ