Defense

Al Qaeda: Leader killed in US drone strike

by Jesse Byrnes - 06/16/15 6:14 AM ET

Al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Nasir al-Wahishi, was killed in a U.S. drone strike, the terror network announced early Tuesday.

{mosads}Al-Wahishi controlled al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a powerful affiliate based in Yemen.

His death was confirmed by a member of the group in a nearly 10-minutelong video posted online.

“Our Muslim nation, a hero of your heroes and a master of your masters left to God, steadfast,” Khaled Batrafi, a senior al Qaeda operative, said in a video, according to The Associated Press.

U.S. intelligence officials concluded that al-Wahishi had been killed, according to White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price.

The former leader’s death “strikes a major blow” to al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate, Price said.

Al-Wahishi was wanted by the U.S. government. He had been accused of “approving AQAP targets, recruiting new members, allocating resources, and directing AQAP operatives to conduct,” according to the State Department, which was offering a $10 million reward for information on his whereabouts.

AQAP has been tied to a number of attempted attacks on the U.S. homeland, including a series of explosive-laden packages sent to the U.S. following a botched attempt to detonate a bomb on a commercial flight in 2009.

The group, seen as al Qaeda’s most lethal affiliate, is competing for regional power with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which the U.S. has targeted with airstrikes in Syria and through local forces in Iraq since last year.

The death represents a serious setback for al Qaeda and could prove to be the biggest victory in the U.S.’s war against that group since the 2011 death of Osama bin Laden.

“If confirmed, the death of AQAP’s leader is a major blow to Islamist terrorists who are plotting daily to attack America. And it delivers a clear message to fanatics: if you try to bring terror to our shores, we will bring justice to yours,” House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said in a statement.

“But as we know from the case of Osama bin Laden, killing al Qaeda commanders is not enough. We can chase these fanatics to the gates of hell, but to win, we must destroy their terrorist sanctuaries and defeat their insidious ideology,” McCaul added.

The U.S. has sought to target the group in Yemen in recent years through counterterrorism operations, most notably killing Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011, though the anti-ISIS fight has dominated attention since last fall.

The threat from AQAP has only grown, analysts say, amid a messy civil war that has broken out in Yemen, pitting Iran-backed Houthi rebels against an effort led by Saudi Arabia. AQAP has seized on the chaos created by that conflict to expand the territory under their control.

“I think this is the most significant U.S. counterterrorism success since the killing of Osama bin Laden,” former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell said on “CBS This Morning.”

Morell noted that al-Wahishi ran al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen for the past 13 years and said his death would be “disruptive” as the group looks to his replacement, Qassim al-Raimi.

“We were concerned when the United States was forced to leave Yemen that we were going to be blind. But this tells me that we have found a way to continue to collect intelligence there, and that is a very good thing,” Morell added.

In the video released on Tuesday, Batrafi appointed al-Wahishi’s deputy, Qassim al-Raimi, as the groups’ next leader, and pledged to continue the fight against the U.S.

Al-Raimi is believed to have been behind the failed 2010 plot to plant bombs in printers and ship them on cargo planes to the U.S.

— This report was last updated at 12:05 p.m.

Tags al Qaeda AQAP