By Kevin Zhang
Terrorist group al-Qaeda confirmed on Sunday, March 5th, that a senior member of the jihadist group in Yemen has been killed in air strikes, said the SITE Intelligence Group.
According to AFP, local security and government sources have stated that Hamad bin Hamoud al-Tamimi had been killed. The sources had identified him as a top leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The United States had AQAP among the more dangerous branches of al Qaeda.
Tamimi, a Saudi also known as Abdel Aziz al-Adnani, died in a drone strike on February 26 that targeted his residence in war-torn Yemen’s northern Marib province.
Tamimi was identified as a “media official” who “previously managed external operations in the group, including those striking American interests”.
AQAP said that Tamimi spent nearly four years in prison in Saudi Arabia, before moving to Yemen in 2013, where he expressed an interest in attacking “vital” American holdings and even to carry out a suicide attack himself.
The sources, which have chosen to stay anonymous, have told AFP that Tamimi had headed AQAP’s leadership council and acted as the militant group’s “judge”.
SITE said the Al-Qaeda statement had claimed that another media official, Abu Nasser al-Hadhrami, was “a victim of the attack”.
AQAP and other rival militant groups, some under the banner of the Islamic State, have thrived in the chaos of Yemen’s eight year civil war, which pits the Saudi-backed Yemeni government against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebel group.
