According to security and local government sources who spoke to AFP on Wednesday, a senior Al-Qaeda leader was reportedly killed in a suspected US air attack in Yemen’s civil war.
According to a security source who spoke on condition of anonymity, the attack claimed the lives of Hamad bin Hamoud al-Tamimi and a bodyguard. AQAP is one of the most dangerous branches of the international jihadist network according to Washington.
Al-newly Tamimi’s rented home in the northern province of Marib was the focus of an airstrike that was “apparently American,” the official said.
A Marib government official, also speaking anonymously, confirmed the deaths.
Tamimi, a Saudi also known as Abdel Aziz al-Adnani, headed up AQAP’s leadership council and acted as the militant group’s “judge”, the sources said.
The “president of the consultative council and judge, known as Abdel Aziz al-Adnani, was killed with a Yemeni bodyguard”, the Marib official said.
The chaos of Yemen’s civil war, which sets the Saudi-backed government against the Iran-allied Huthi rebels, has benefited AQAP and rival militants loyal to the Islamic State group.
In addition to sporadic attacks overseas, AQAP has conducted operations against both the Huthis and government forces.
Over the past two decades, the US has waged a drone war against its leaders, though the number of attacks has decreased recently.
The assault occurs one month after a suspected US drone strike on a vehicle in Marib province allegedly killed three AQAP militants.
Conflict has plagued Yemen since 2015, when a coalition headed by Saudi Arabia intervened to support the government after the Huthis took over the capital city of Sanaa.
Since then, the conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe, and millions of displaced people.
