[FOXNEWS] U.S. officials were working late Monday to confirm whether the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000...
(AQAP) had been killed in a recent CIA drone strike, even as social media accounts associated with Death Eater groups announced the man's death.
A counter-terrorism source who tracks social media accounts tied to Al Qaeda and ISIS told Fox News late Monday that a credible account based in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
was reporting that Nasir al-Wuhayshi had been killed in the strike. The account also said that a new leader of the terror group, identified as Qasim al-Raymi, had already been appointed.
There was no immediate comment from the CIA, who referred questions about the drone strike to the National Security Council. There was no official statement from AQAP, which is typical in these operations where the dead Death Eater is mourned as a "martyr" and a replacement named.
Al-Wuhayshi, a former top lieutenant to the late Osama bin Laden... who is no longer with us, and won't be again...
, is described as Al Qaeda's second-in-command, behind leader Ayman al-Zawahiri
... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as
the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
. Intelligence sources told Fox News that he was or around the port city of Mukalla in Yemen when the strike took place this past Friday.
Arab media outlets reported that three suspected Al Qaeda members were killed June 9 in an apparent U.S. drone strike in Mukalla. It is not clear if this was the same strike that targeted al-Wuhayshi.
"If confirmed, the death of AQAP's leader is a major blow to Islamist turbans who are plotting daily to attack America," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the homeland security committee.
Al-Qaida in Yemen Confirms Leader Killed in U.S. Drone Strike
[AnNahar] Al-Qaeda confirmed that its second-in-command, head of its powerful Yemeni branch, was killed in a U.S. drone strike, in the heaviest blow to the jihadist network since the death of the late Osama bin Laden
... who doesn't live anywhere anymore...
Already struggling with the rise of rival jihadists from the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group, al-Qaeda has suffered a series of setbacks in recent months with several commanders reported killed.
In a video statement, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) confirmed that Nasir al-Wuhayshi was dead.
Wuhayshi "was killed in a U.S. drone attack that targeted him along with two other mujahedeen," who were also killed, said the statement read by prominent al-Qaeda Death Eater Khaled Omar Batarfi and dated June 15.
AQAP -- which was behind several plots against Western targets including the deadly attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo
...
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...in Gay Paree earlier this year -- said it had named its military chief Qassem al-Rimi as its new leader.
Rimi, aged 41, was an instructor at a training camp in Afghanistan during the 1990s and his younger brother is in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay.
| What, still? Are they sure? |