Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch says its leader has died

The Yemen-based branch of Al Qaeda said on Sunday that its leader, Khaled Batarfi, had died.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, released a video announcing Mr Batarfi’s death, with images of him wrapped in a white shroud covered with a black Al Qaeda flag. It was not explained how he died.

The U.S. government once considered Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world. The group tried and failed to blow up US aircraft at least three times, and has been the target of US drone strikes for two decades. But in that time, both its power and ability to carry out attacks outside Yemen have declined, according to scientists who study the group.

“It will be interesting to see if the group charts a new course in the coming months,” said Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “AQAP has struggled in recent years, losing ground and recruits and is currently a shadow of its former self.”

In the video statement, Ibrahim Al-Qosi, a Sudanese senior leader in the group, expressed his “sincere condolences and sincere regret” over Mr Batarfi’s death.

He said the group’s new leader would be Yemen’s Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki. The United States previously offered one $6 million reward for information about Mr al-Awlaki, and $5 million for tips on Mr. Batarfi.

Born in Saudi Arabia, Mr Batarfi traveled to Afghanistan in the 1990s and fought alongside the Taliban before joining Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, an American newspaper said. informative sheet about him. He was believed to have been in his 40s when he died.

a United Nations Report estimated in January that the group had about 3,000 fighters spread across several Yemeni provinces and had faced operational and financial challenges but “persists as a threat.”

“Although in decline, AQAP remains the most effective terrorist group in Yemen with the intention to conduct operations in the region and beyond,” the report’s authors wrote.

Yemen has been torn by war over the past decade, as an Iran-backed militia, the Houthis, took control of much of the country, and Saudi Arabia – Yemen’s neighbor to the north – led a bombing campaign in an attempt to put them to flight. . Hundreds of thousands of people have died from violence, hunger and disease.

The Saudi-led coalition withdrew in recent years, leaving the Houthis to entrench their power in the north, including in the Yemeni capital Sana. In the south, the most powerful entity is an Emirati-backed armed separatist group, the Southern Transitional Council. The separatist group and other Yemeni armed groups have occasionally clashed with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The appointment of a new leader for the group “doesn’t change much in terms of intent,” said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consultancy based in New York.

“Like all his predecessors, al-Awlaki has repeatedly called for attacks on the US,” he said. “But the question comes down to capacity.”

Instability in Yemen – as the Houthis launch attacks on ships in the Red Sea in a campaign they say is solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and a US-led coalition carries out air strikes on the group – could provide “an opening” for AQAP to recruit and rebuild its operations, Mr Clarke said.

“That will be the overarching priority for al-Awlaki, to make AQAP relevant again within the broader jihadist movement,” he said.