Asia

Asia

Al-Qaida's No. 2 figure killed in US strike in Yemen

17 June 2015 02:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A U.S. airstrike has killed Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, who commanded its powerful Yemeni affiliate, dealing the global network its biggest blow since the killing of Osama bin Laden and eliminating a charismatic leader at a time when it is vying with the Islamic State group for the mantle of global jihad, APA reports quoting Associated Press.

Nasir al-Wahishi is the latest in a series of senior figures from al-Qaida's Yemen branch eliminated by U.S. drone strikes the past five months, including its top ideologue and a senior military commander. The U.S. has intensified its campaign, trying to push back the group as it has captured new territory in Yemen by taking advantage of the southern Arabian nation's chronic chaos.

The US activity against al-Qaida is also not limited to Yemen. Over the weekend, a U.S. airstrike in Libya targeted an al-Qaida-linked militant commander, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who led a 2013 attack on an Algerian gas complex that killed 35 hostages including several Americans. US officials are still trying to confirm whether he was killed in the raid.

Al-Wahishi was a former aide to bin Laden who, after the al-Qaida affiliate in Saudi Arabia was crushed in the mid-2000s, rebuilt it in his homeland Yemen and turned it into the terror network's most dangerous branch. He also served as deputy to Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded bin Laden in 2011 as the network's leader. The U.S. put a bounty of up to $10 million on al-Wahishi.

The Yemeni branch, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, claimed responsibility for January's attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that killed 12 people. It also attempted several direct attacks on the United States including the botched 2009 plot to bomb an American passenger jet.

A senior operative in the affiliate announced al-Wahishi's death and said his deputy, Qassim al-Raimi, has been tapped to replace him.

"Our Muslim nation, one of your heroes and masters has departed to God," Khaled Batrafi said in a video statement dated June 14 but released by the group online Tuesday. In a eulogy, he said al-Wahishi "took part with (al-Qaida's) first generation in hurting America in different places of the world starting from the 1990's."

Batarfi vowed that the group's war on the United States would continue, saying "the blood of these pioneers makes us more determined to sacrifice." He said the U.S. would "taste the bitter flavor of war and defeat until you stop supporting the Jews, the occupiers of Palestine, until you leave the lands of the Muslims and stop supporting apostate tyrants."

Al-Wahishi's death came in a U.S. drone strike a week ago in the southern Yemeni port city of Mukalla, which al-Qaida captured in April. Yemeni security officials said two other militants were killed in the strike. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. U.S. officials had said they were trying to verify whether al-Wahishi was killed.

Al-Raimi, the new leader of AQAP, is thought to have masterminded a 2010 plot in which bombs concealed in printers were shipped to the U.S. on cargo planes before being detected and defused. He is believed to direct training camps in Yemen's remote deserts and mountains, where he organizes cells and plans attacks.

AQAP's master bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, is also believed to still be alive. He is thought to have designed the bombs used in the cargo planes plot and in the 2009 plane-bombing plot, in which the bomber hid explosives in his underwear but botched the detonation.

Al-Asiri also designed the explosives used by his own younger brother, who blew himself up in a failed 2009 attempt to assassinate Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, then head of Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism agency. Mohammed is now the crown prince. Al-Shihri is a Saudi national.