TerrorismU.S. kills al-Qaeda’s second-in-command

A U.S. drone strike in Yemen on 9 June killed Nasir al-Wuhayshi, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command and the leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda’s most powerful regional organization.

Analysts say the killing of Wuhayshi, nicknamed Abu Basir, is a blow to the organization. He was a charismatic and capable organizer who was focused on continuing al-Qaeda’s tradition of hitting Western targets, preferably in a headline-grabbing spectacular fashion.

AQAP has been under sustained attacks by U.S. drone strikes and Special Forces operations.

“Our Islamic nation, this was one of your champions and leaders,” said AQAP official Khaled Batarfi in a video statement, which said Wuhayshi was killed along with two other militants. “In our time … the leaders of jihad have been killed. But the blood of these leaders has only increased the insistence on jihad.”

Arab media reported earlier that three suspected al-Qaeda members were killed on 9 June in a U.S. drone strike in Mukalla, a south-eastern port city in Yemen.

Batarfi said in his statement that Qassim al-Raimi, nicknamed Abu Hurayra and a military commander in AQAP, was elected by the group’s leadership council to succeed Wuhayshi. He said many of the council members were able to meet and pledge loyalty to the new leader, despite security concerns and the fact the group was fighting on eleven different fronts with Iran-supported Shi’a Houthi rebels and their allies in Yemen.

The Guardian reports that Wuhayshi, who fought in Afghanistan, accompanied Osama bin Laden as they fled the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to the caves of Tora Bora in Pakistan. He served as OBL’s secretary and close aide. He was imprisoned in Yemen for a couple of years but escaped and helped found AQAP in 2009, rising to the leadership of the group.

AQAP refused to pledge allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, when he last year announced the establishment of a, Islamic caliphate.

The Washington Post notes that the United States considers AQAP a threat and has used drone strikes the group’s operatives. The campaign against AQAP has become more difficult since Houthi rebels seized large swaths of the country and chased the pro-Western government out of the capital, Sana’a. The violence has allowed the group to advance in Yemen’s eastern provinces. The Saudi air force has been actively bombing targets in Yemen, hitting Houthi fighters but also methodically destroying airfields, arms depots, and military equipment belonging to the Yemeni army for fear that these arms may fall into the hands of the Houthi.

Critics of the Saudi campaign note that the Saudis have avoided hitting AQAP targets.

The New York Times reports that AQAP has claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks against Western targets, among them the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January and the failed “underwear bomb” attempt on a transatlantic Delta flight in December 2009.

Wuhayshi, who was born in 1976, was named Zawahiri’s second-in-command in 2013. The United States had offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest, putting him on the same level as ISIS’s Baghdadi and Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network.