Strike killed Al Qaeda’s Yemen leader, U.S. confirms
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence has confirmed that a CIA drone strike killed the founder and leader of Al Qaeda’s feared affiliate in Yemen, officials said Tuesday.
Naser Abdel-Karim Wahishi was second in command and heir apparent to Ayman Zawahiri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as head of the global terrorist network. Wahishi’s death is the most significant strike against the group since a CIA-led raid killed Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.
Wahishi led Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which U.S. intelligence has called Al Qaeda’s most dangerous and active franchise. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike Friday.
His death “strikes a major blow to AQAP, Al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate, and to Al Qaeda more broadly,” Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said Tuesday in a statement.
“Wahishi had led AQAP since its founding in 2009 and oversaw the group’s plotting against the United States, U.S. interests in the Arabian Peninsula, and those of our allies in the region,” he said.
The U.S. confirmation came several hours after Khaled Batarfi, a senior AQAP operative, announced Wahishi’s death in a video. He said Wahishi has been replaced by the group’s military commander, Qassim Raimi, and vowed to continue fighting the “crusaders and their agents,” meaning the United States and its allies.
Analysts said AQAP remains a potent threat despite the death of its leader.
Wahishi turned AQAP into the “most aggressive of Al Qaeda affiliates trying to target the U.S., and doing it in ways that were fairly ingenious,” said Seth Jones, a former U.S. counter-terrorism official now with the Rand Corp. But he said Al Qaeda has proved resilient.
“Time and time again, the death of a senior leader does not destroy the group,” Jones said.