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Yemen al-Qaida leader killed by US drone strike Yemen al-Qaida leader killed by US drone strike
(about 2 hours later)
Al-Qaida has confirmed that Nasir al-Wuhayshi, its second-in-command and leader of its powerful Yemeni affiliate, has been killed in a US strike. Al-Qaida’s most powerful franchise has announced the death of its leader, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, in a US air strike in Yemen, the latest blow to the global jihadi organisation.
In a video statement released early on Tuesday by the media wing of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group confirmed his death and said his deputy, Qassim al-Rimi, has been named its new leader. The killing of Wuhayshi, nicknamed Abu Basir and one of al-Qaida’s most charismatic leaders, was confirmed in a video statement by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Wuhayshi was the deputy of the al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, and once served as Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary. The group, which is engaged in fierce fighting in Yemen with domestic opponents, is under relentless pressure from US drone strikes and has suffered a loss of influence with the advances of its rival, Islamic State, in the arena of global jihad.
The Washington Post reported that Wuhayshi was targeted in a CIA drone strike last week. US officials have declined to confirm the CIA’s role. Related: How Isis crippled al-Qaida | Shiv Malik, Ali Younes, Spencer Ackerman, Mustafa Khalili
AQAP is considered the terror group most capable of striking American interests. “Our Islamic nation, this was one of your champions and leaders,” said AQAP official Khaled Omar Batarfi in the statement, which said Wuhayshi was killed with two other militants. “In our time ... the leaders of jihad have been killed,” he added. “But the blood of these leaders has only increased the insistence on jihad.”
Arab media reports earlier said three suspected al-Qaida members were killed on 9 June in an apparent US drone strike in Mukalla, a south-eastern port city in Yemen.Arab media reports earlier said three suspected al-Qaida members were killed on 9 June in an apparent US drone strike in Mukalla, a south-eastern port city in Yemen.
Before al-Qaida’s confirmation, Michael McCaul, a Republican who chairs the House of Representatives’ homeland security committee, described reports of Wuhayshi’s death as “a major blow to Islamist terrorists who are plotting daily to attack America”. Batarfi said Qassem al-Raimi, nicknamed Abu Hurayra and a military commander in AQAP, was elected by the group’s leadership council to succeed Wuhayshi. He said many of the council members were able to meet and pledge allegiance to the new leader, despite security concerns and the fact the group was fighting on 11 fronts with Houthi rebels and their allies in Yemen.
Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said the death “would be a significant blow to the core of the terrorist organisation and its most dangerous franchise”. Wuhayshi, once a fighter in Afghanistan who accompanied Osama bin Laden in the caves of Tora Bora as he fled the US invasion in 2001, was the terror group mastermind’s secretary and close aide. He has been involved in fighting the Americans since the 1990s. After spending time in prison in Yemen, he escaped and helped found AQAP in 2009, rising to the leadership of the group.
As al-Qaida leaders have been captured or killed, Schiff said, “Zawahri has been increasingly reliant on a small cadre of loyal lieutenants. As one of those top lieutenants, Wuhayshi has played an important role in keeping al-Qaida factions aligned with Zawahri in the face of rival pressures” from the Islamic State group. Under Wuhayshi’s leadership, the group helped maintain a semblance of influence for al-Qaida’s central leadership by refusing to pledge allegiance to the leader of Isis, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, when he declared the founding of a caliphate last year.
The group’s master bombmaker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, is believed to still be alive. He is thought to have designed bombs that were slipped past security and placed on three separate American-bound airplanes, although none of them exploded. In a video released in November, AQAP’s chief cleric, Harith al-Nidhari, rejected the caliphate declaration and renewed the group’s allegiance to al-Qaida and its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, urging an end to the discord between the jihadi franchises.
The US considers Aqap a threat, and has relentlessly pursued a drone war of attrition against the group in Yemen, even as the country descended into chaos amid a Saudi-led air campaign to stem the advance of the Houthi rebels, who belong to the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam and seized the capital, Sana’a, last year. AQAP considers the Houthis apostates, and the ensuing chaos has allowed the group to advance in Yemen’s eastern provinces.
AQAP has claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks against western targets. The gunmen who carried out the massacre at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January are thought to have trained with group, and AQAP said it was responsible for a failed attempt to bomb a transatlantic flight on Christmas Day 2009, involving the “underwear bomber” Umar Faruk Abdulmutallib.