Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula announced the death of its leader and introduced his successor

The “SITE” center, which monitors extremist media, pointed out that Ebrahim Al-Qusi, the legal officer of the Al-Qaeda organization, was the leader in a recorded file of the killing of Batrafi on Sunday. Since February 2020, this organization has confirmed and announced that “Saad bin Atif Al-Awlaki is the new leader of this organization in the Arabian Peninsula”, which the United States has classified as a terrorist.

According to Rai Alyoum newspaper, Batrafi, a Saudi born in Riyadh, was in his early 40s when he took over the leadership of this organization in February 2020 after its leader Qasim al-Rimi was killed in an American drone attack.

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At the same time, Nasser Al-Wahishi, the leader of his predecessor, was also killed by an American drone in Yemen in June 2015.

Batarfi worked as a Sharia judge and the official spokesman of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula before taking over the leadership of the organization. In 2018, the United States classified him as a “global terrorist” and offered a $5 million reward for information about him.

As for his successor, al-Awlaki, he is a Yemeni, also known as Saad Muhammad Atef, a member of the organization’s council and is on the US Rewards for Justice list. The United States has offered a reward of up to six million dollars for anyone who provides information about him.

The US State Department says Al-Awlaki publicly called for an attack on the United States and its allies.

The presence of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which was founded in 2009, like other extremist groups, grew amid the chaos caused by the Yemeni civil war.

The United States considers Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen, to be the most dangerous branch of Al-Qaeda.

This organization claimed responsibility for several attacks, especially the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris in 2015, which killed 12 people.

Source: ISNA