Tuesday, June 16, 2015
There goes another #2
Seems the guys were just flying a few drones around Yemen when the saw some bad looking dudes and decided to drop a Hellfire on them. Boom! There goes another al-Qaida #2 guy.
Al Qaida’s branch in war-torn Yemen confirmed Tuesday that its leader was killed in a U.S. drone strike.And the boys had an extra bit of good fortune, no wedding parties in the area.
In a video statement, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninusla announced that Nasir al Wuhayshi, who carried a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head and once served as Osama bin Laden’s secretary, had been replaced by Qasm al Rimi, also known by his nom de guerre of Abu Hureira al Sanaani.
Wuhayshi’s death represents a setback to al Qaida, but one from which it would likely recover.
“He was very significant, but you don’t defeat an organization like this by killing its leader,” said Seth Jones, a terrorism expert with the RAND Corp., a policy institute. “It’s a blow, but not an irrecoverable blow.”
Wuhayshi’s death Friday was the second major counter-terrorism success for the United States over a three-day period.
U.S. jetfighters on Sunday dropped multiple 500-pound bombs on a compound near the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, killing Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian extremist linked to al Qaida, U.S. officials said. He was wanted for the 2013 seizure of a natural gas plant in Algeria in which 38 foreigners died, including three Americans.
According local news reports in Yemen and social media posts, Wuhayshi was killed by a U.S. drone strike on Friday in the southern port city of al Mukallah.
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