The United States announced Thursday that the operation carried out in Yemen against the leader of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Qasim al Rimi, has resulted in his death.
Although the exact date of the attack was not specified, security sources told the newspaper ‘The New York Times’ that took place around January 8.
According to information from the media sources, the CIA learned of its location through a Yemeni informant, who put the target in the spotlight of drones, which began recording their movements until the attack was launched. , allegedly carried out in the Wadi Abedah region in the center of the country.
“Al Rimi committed excessive violence against civilians in Yemen and tried to direct and inspire numerous attacks against the United States and our forces,” the White House added.
The death of Al Rimi, 41, and ‘number two’ of Al Qaeda, represents a major blow against the Yemeni branch of the terrorist group, considered one of the most powerful in the organization.
The administration of the American president, Donald Trump, has valued that his death “further degrades Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its global movement, and brings us closer to eliminating the threats that these groups represent for our national security.”
It was considered a priority target because it was one of the few terrorist operations in Al Qaeda involved in attacks prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States that were still alive.
Veteran of Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, Al Rimi, a Yemeni by birth, returned to his home country where he was imprisoned for five years for conspiring to kill the US ambassador. However, he left prison one year later, and began to rise in the ranks of Al Qaeda.
The State Department had offered a reward of $ 10 million for information leading to its neutralization, as a suspect in the 2008 attack on the US Embassy in Sana, which killed 10 guards and four civilians, as well as in the 2009 plot starring Nigerian Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab to shoot down an American flight with hidden explosives in his underwear.
Al Rimi’s death takes place just a month after the US attack that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
