American Strike Targets Qaeda Leader in Yemen

Arab World

February 1st, 6:22am

Washington – Elie Youssef

A Yemeni police poster shows images of Qassim al-Rimi. (AFP)

The United States targeted in a drone strike the leader of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Qassim al-Rimi, Arab and western media reported. Rimi, 41, was targeted after months of tracking by using aerial surveillance and other intelligence, three current or former American officials revealed, according to the New York Times. They were awaiting confirmation of his death before making a public announcement. A Yemeni source confirmed that a US drone strike targeted Rimi’s house in the central Wadi Obeidah region east of Marib, reported Al Arabiya. The CIA learned of Rimi’s location from an informer in Yemen in November, according to a United States official who was briefed on the strike. That information allowed the government to begin tracking him through surveillance drones, said the New York Times. Local news reports in Yemen said that a drone strike this month killed two militant suspects in the area of Wadi Obeidah. The reports did not identify the people killed in the strike. A veteran of al-Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan, Rimi later returned to his native Yemen, where he was sentenced to five years in prison for plotting to kill the American ambassador there. He broke out of jail a year later, and quickly rose through the ranks of the Qaeda affiliate. The State Department offered a $5 million bounty for information leading to his capture, and later doubled the reward to $10 million, as he was linked to numerous plots against American interests, said the New York Times.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2109611/american-strike-targets-qaeda-leader-yemen