YEMEN’S QAEDA LEADER APPEARS IN VIDEO DESPITE UN REPORT OF HIS ARREST

DUBAI: The leader of al-qaeda’s branch in Yemen appears to be still at large despite a United Nations report that claimed he had been under arrest for months, the SITE Intelligence Group and two local tribal leaders said on Thursday after he was seen in a video released by the jihadist group.

Khalid Batarfi, who has been the leader of al-qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) for about a year, apparently talks about the storming of the US Capitol last month in the video, which came out on Wednesday.

The video, which opens with footage of the January 6 assault by former US president Donald Trump supporters, belies reports that Batarfi was under arrest, said SITE, which monitors extremist organisations.

In the 20-minute video titled America and the Painful Seizure, Batarfi says “storming the Congress is only the tip of the iceberg of what will come to them, God willing”.

A report filed to the UN Security Council last week claimed Batarfi was arrested and his deputy, Saad Atef al-awlaqi, killed during an “operation in Ghayda City, Al-mahrah governorate, in October”.

Two local tribal leaders in the Al-bayda governorate in central Yemen, where AQAP is active, told AFP there was a high probability the person arrested was not Batarfi but another member of the jihadist group.

“Most probably, he wasn’t arrested, and the one who was arrested was another senior leader in the group,” one of the tribal leaders said.

The UN report, which summarised global potential jihadist threats, did not disclose his whereabouts or reveal any further details of the October operation.