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Al Qaeda's Yemen-based department mentioned on Sunday that its chief Khalid Batrafi has been killed.
Al Qaeda within the Arabian Peninsula, referred to as AQAP, launched a video saying Mr. Batrafi's dying, displaying pictures of him wrapped in a white funeral shroud with a black al Qaeda flag. It was not talked about how he died.
The US authorities as soon as thought of Al Qaeda within the Arabian Peninsula one of the crucial harmful terrorist organizations on the earth. The group has tried and failed not less than 3 times to explode US plane, and has been the goal of US drone strikes for twenty years. However in that point, each its energy and talent to hold out assaults exterior Yemen have declined, based on students who examine the group.
“It is going to be attention-grabbing to see if the group charts a brand new course within the coming months,” mentioned Gregory D. Johnson, a Yemen knowledgeable on the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “AQAP has struggled lately, dropping territory and recruits and, in the intervening time, is a shadow of its former self.”
In a video assertion, Ibrahim al-Kosi, the senior Sudanese chief within the group, expressed his “heartfelt condolences and grave remorse” over Mr. Batrafi’s dying.
He mentioned the group's new chief could be Yemen's Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki. The US had beforehand provided a reward of $6 million for details about Mr. al-Awlaki and $5 million for details about Mr. Batrafi.
Born in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Batrafi traveled to Afghanistan within the Nineties and fought with the Taliban earlier than becoming a member of al Qaeda's department in Yemen, based on a US info doc about him. It’s believed that he was 40 years previous when he died.
A UN report in January estimated that the group had about 3,000 fighters unfold throughout varied Yemeni provinces, and that it confronted operational and monetary challenges, however “stays a menace.”
“Though in decline, AQAP stays the best terrorist group in Yemen with the intent to conduct operations within the area and past,” the report's authors wrote.
Yemen has been wracked by warfare over the previous decade, because the Iran-backed militia, the Houthis, have taken over a lot of the nation, and Saudi Arabia – Yemen's neighbor to the north – has led a bombing marketing campaign in an effort to subdue them. . , Tens of millions of individuals have died from violence, starvation and illness.
The Saudi-led coalition retreated lately, permitting the Houthis to grab energy within the north, together with the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Within the south, probably the most highly effective entity is an Emirate-backed armed separatist group referred to as the Southern Transitional Council. Separatist teams and different Yemeni armed teams have intermittently clashed with al Qaeda within the Arabian Peninsula.
Colin P. Clark, a counterterrorism analyst on the New York-based safety consulting agency Soufan Group, mentioned the elevation of a brand new chief for the group “doesn't change a lot by way of intent.”
“Like all his predecessors, al-Awlaki has been vocal in calling for assaults on the US,” he mentioned. “However the query comes right down to capability.”
Instability in Yemen – because the Houthis have launched assaults on ships within the Pink Sea in a marketing campaign it says is in solidarity with Palestinians within the Gaza Strip and the US-led coalition has launched airstrikes towards the group – has come below strain from AQAP. That might “present a gap” for the U.S. to recruit and rebuild its operations, Mr. Clarke mentioned.
He mentioned, “Restoring AQAP to relevance throughout the broader jihadist motion will likely be a high precedence for al-Awlaki.”