DUBAI — Al-Qaeda on Sunday confirmed the loss of life of a senior determine within the jihadist community’s Yemen department in a suspected US airstrike final month, SITE Intelligence Group reported.
Security and native authorities sources instructed Agence France-Presse on Wednesday Hamad bin Hamoud al-Tamimi had been killed, figuring out him as a prime chief of Al-Qaeda within the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which Washington regards as among the many group’s most harmful branches.
Tamimi, a Saudi often known as Abdel Aziz al-Adnani, died in a drone strike on February 26 that focused his residence in war-torn Yemen’s northern Marib province, in line with the assertion reported by SITE, which displays jihadist web sites.
The assertion recognized him as a “media official” who “previously managed external operations in the group, including those striking American interests,” SITE stated.
AQAP stated Tamimi spent practically 4 years in jail in Saudi Arabia earlier than travelling to Yemen in 2013, the place he expressed a want to assault “vital” American pursuits and perform a suicide assault himself.
The sources, requesting anonymity, instructed AFP Tamimi had headed AQAP’s management council and acted because the militant group’s “judge.”
SITE stated the al Qaeda assertion had famous one other media official, Abu Nasser al-Hadhrami, was “a victim of the attack.”
AQAP and rival militants loyal to the Islamic State group have thrived within the chaos of Yemen’s eight-year civil struggle, which pits the Saudi-backed authorities in opposition to Iran-allied Huthi rebels.
AQAP has carried out operations in opposition to each the Huthis and authorities forces in addition to sporadic assaults overseas.
Its leaders have been focused in a US drone struggle for greater than twenty years, however the variety of reported strikes has dropped lately.
The February 26 assault got here a month after three alleged AQAP militants have been killed in one other suspected US drone strike on a automotive, additionally in Marib province.
Yemen has been wracked by battle since 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition intervened to again the federal government after the Huthis seized management of the capital Sanaa.
The battle has since killed tens of hundreds of individuals and triggered what the United Nations phrases the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, with tens of millions of individuals displaced. — Agence France-Presse
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
