Baku-APA. A senior al Qaeda leader wanted by the United States and an area commander of its local affiliate, Ansar al-Sharia, were killed in U.S. drone strikes in central Yemen overnight, the Islamist militant group said on Wednesday, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Nabil al-Dahab, leader of Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen's al-Bayda province, was killed along with Shawki al-Badani and several other militants, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said in a statement posted on the Internet. Badani, who was described by AQAP as an emir (prince) -- a titled held by senior leaders -- has had a $100,000 bounty by the United States on his head.
Their deaths deal a severe blow to the Islamist militant group that has repeatedly targeted Yemeni government facilities, army facilities and personnel and even Western missions since mass protests forced long-ruling President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down in 2012.
"We cannot find the words to give the two lions their dues, no matter how much we tried," AQAP said in the statement mourning the two commanders.
Both men, it said, had been leading a fight to stop Shi'ite Muslim Houthi fighters extending their control to the Sunni Muslim heartland.
The Yemeni Defence Ministry said Badani had been killed, and added without elaborating that an al Qaeda leader it identified as Abu Maysara al-Hanaki had been killed by air strikes.
The U.S. State Department had designated Badani as a "global terrorist", saying he was linked to at least two plots against the U.S. embassy in Sanaa and a 2012 suicide bombing in the Yemeni capital that killed more than 100 soldiers.
A June 17, 2014, posting on the State Department website said the Yemeni government had offered a $100,000 reward for information about Badani. It also reported Yemeni authorities describing him as one of "the most dangerous terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda".
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