Leader of al Qaida in Yemen dead in unclear circumstances

The leader of Yemen’s branch of al Qaida is dead, the militant group has announced.

Khalid al-Batarfi had a five million dollar (£3.9 million) bounty on his head from the US government over leading the group in the Arabian Peninsula, long considered the most dangerous branch still operating after the killing of founder Osama bin Laden.

Al Qaida released a video on Sunday showing al-Batarfi, who was believed to be in his early 40s, wrapped in a funeral shroud of the al Qaida black-and-white flag. It offered no details on the cause of his death and there was no clear sign of trauma visible on his face.

“Allah took his soul while he patiently sought his reward and stood firm, immigrated, garrisoned, and waged jihad for His sake,” the militants said in the video, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

The group made the announcement on the eve of Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month.

The group said Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki would take over as its leader. The US has a six million dollar (£4.7 million) bounty on the new leader, saying he “has publicly called for attacks against the United States and its allies”.

The Yemen branch of al Qaida has been seen by Washington as the terror network’s most dangerous branch since its attempt in 2009 to bomb a commercial airliner over the United States.

It claimed responsibility for the 2015 deadly attack in Paris on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Al-Batarfi took over as the head of the branch, known by the acronym AQAP, in February 2020. He succeeded Qassim al-Rimi, who was killed by a US drone strike ordered by then-president Donald Trump after claiming responsibility for the 2019 attack at the US Naval Air Station Pensacola in which a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors.

Al-Batarfi, born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, travelled to Afghanistan in 1999 and fought alongside the Taliban during the US-led invasion. He joined AQAP in 2010 and led forces in taking over Yemen’s Abyan province, according to the US.

In 2015, he was freed after an AQAP raid that saw the militants capture Mukalla, the capital of Yemen’s largest province, Hadramawt, amid the chaos that followed Yemen’s Houthi rebels seizing the capital, Sanaa, and as a Saudi-led coalition started a war against the Houthis.

AQAP was later pushed out of Mukalla, but has continued attacks and been the target of a US drone strike campaign since the administration of then-president George W Bush.