Aden (agencies)
Yesterday, al-Qaeda announced the killing of one of its military leaders in a US strike in Yemen, SITE reported.
Rita Katz, director of the site that monitors the activities of armed groups on the Internet, said that the organization did not mention any date or place of killing Saleh bin Salem bin Obaid Aboulan, also known as Abu Amir al-Hadrami, who was among the aides of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
It cited reports on Twitter of a US airstrike that killed three ISIS fighters on November 14.
Last February, the United Nations announced the arrest of the leader of the organization in the Arabian Peninsula, Khaled Batarfi, and the killing of his deputy, Saad Atef al-Awlaki, during a “security operation in the city of al-Ghaydah in the Yemeni governorate of Mahra last October.”
The United Nations report stated at the time that “in addition to its losses at the level of leaders, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula suffers from erosion in its ranks due to defections, especially after the major blows and defeats it received in Al-Bayda Governorate in Yemen.”
The report stated that “the global al-Qaeda network faces a new and urgent challenge with regard to its leadership and strategic direction, after an exceptional period of attrition of its senior leaders” in Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia, Yemen and the Syrian province of Idlib. According to the US Central Command, no US military airstrikes were carried out in Yemen between 2020 and 2021, which has previously seen multiple airstrikes each year against members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.