Al-Qaeda leader's death confirmed/new successor announced
According to Khabar Online, this center pointed out that Ibrahim Al-Qusi, the legal officer of the Al-Qaeda organization, confirmed the killing of Batrafi, the leader of this organization since February 2020, in a recorded file on Sunday and announced that “Saad bin Atif Al-Awlaki is the new leader of this organization in the interim.” Arabian Island” that the United States has classified him on the terrorist list.
According to Rai Alyoum newspaper, Batrafi, a Saudi born in Riyadh, was in his early forties when he took over the leadership of the organization in February 2020 after its leader Qasim al-Rimi was killed in a US drone strike.
According to ISNA, this is despite the fact that Nasser Al-Wohishi, the leader of his predecessor, was also killed by an American drone in Yemen in June 2015.
Before taking over the leadership of the organization, Batarifi worked as a sharia judge and the official spokesman of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. 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 Mohammad Atef, a member of the organization's council and on the US Rewards for Justice list. The United States has offered a reward of up to six million dollars for information about him.
The State Department says al-Awlaki publicly called for an attack on the United States and its allies.
Founded in 2009, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, like other extremist groups, has grown amid the chaos of 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.
The organization claimed responsibility for several attacks, most notably the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris in 2015, which killed 12 people.
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