Trump confirms top al-Qaida bomb maker was killed in 2017 by American military

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that U.S. forces had killed Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, a highly skilled al-Qaida bombmaker who built the explosives for several high-profile terrorist plots.

Trump’s announcement belatedly confirmed news reports from August 2018 that cited U.S. officials expressing confidence that Asiri, a leader of the Yemenbased branch known as alQaida in the Arabian Peninsula, had likely been killed by a drone strike in the country the year before.

“This will confirm for the first time that Ibrahim alAsiri, a senior al-Qaida bomb maker and terrorist coordinator, was killed two years ago in a United States counterterrorism operation in Yemen,” Trump said in the statement released by the White House. “The United States will continue to hunt down terrorists like al-Asiri until they no longer pose a threat to our great Nation.”

The statement did not explain the reason for the long delay. The United States is not always sure who exactly has been killed in counterterrorism operations conducted from a distance, including by a drone strike, and confirmation can sometimes come later through new intelligence such as intercepted conversations or interrogations.

The announcement also comes as Trump faces intense criticism from national security experts, many of them Republicans, over his failure to prevent Turkey from invading northeastern Syria to attack Syrian Kurdish fighters. Those Kurdish fighters have been the major ground ally within Syria for the campaign against the Islamic State group. Many military and intelligence officials believe the Turkish action could make it easier for the group, known as ISIS, to regenerate as the Kurds turn their attention toward their Turkish enemies.

“This is important, but it’s not news,” said Joshua Geltzer, who served as a senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council in the Obama administration.

“Credible reports have been indicating Asiri is dead for over a year,” Geltzer added. “So this announcement appears deliberately designed to portray Trump as tough on terrorism in a week when he’s proving the opposite — when he’s abandoning key U.S. partners in the fight against ISIS and thus directly raising the terrorist threat to Americans.”

Writing in the Washington Post soon after reports of Asiri’s death last year, the former deputy CIA director, Michael Morell, said that, if confirmed, “he would be the most significant international terrorist removed from the battlefield since Osama bin Laden.”

“He was well known as a master of his craft, and was as intelligent as he was evil,” Morrell wrote. “His removal leaves the world a safer place.”