Al Qaeda leader calls Trump ‘White House’s new fool’

The leader of al Qaeda in the Arabain Peninsula (AQAP) reportedly called President Donald Trump “the White House’s new fool” in an audio recording released Saturday about the United States’ recent raid on the group in Yemen.

“The White House’s new fool has received a painful blow at your hands in his first outing on your land,” Qassim al-Rimi says in the recording, as reported by the Associated Press.

The recording could not immediately be verified, but appears to reference the raid late January — President Trump’s first counter-terrorism offensive — that killed more than a dozen terrorists and also claimed the life of one Navy SEAL, Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens.

{mosads}Civilians, including children, were also reportedly killed.

In the audio, al-Rimi claims that U.S. forces killed 25 people in the raid and that multiple American soldiers were killed or injured. 

Reports emerged following the mission that civilians had been killed, including the 8-year old daughter of American-born al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

Democratic lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the raid, which members of the military said was conducted without proper intelligence or contingency plans.