White House confirms killing of terrorist leader in Yemen

The United States killed the leader of al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen, the White House confirmed Thursday.

The confirmation came about a week after The New York Times first reported that the US believed it had killed Qassim al-Rimi, the al-Qaida leader, in January after months of tracing him.

The CIA carried out the airstrike using an unmanned drone, an intelligence official said.

The White House statement had little detail about the operation but said it was carried out at the direction of President Donald Trump. The statement said al-Rimi’s death will degrade the Yemen affiliate and the global al-Qaida movement and “brings us closer to eliminating the threats these groups pose to our national security.”

Trump has highlighted his record of ordering the killing of terrorist leaders and other adversaries. In his State of the Union address, he highlighted the Army Delta Force raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State group leader, as well as the drone strike in Baghdad that killed Gen Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most important general.

Al-Rimi was one of the founders of Yemen’s al-Qaida affiliate. Although the affiliate’s power and ability to conduct strikes in the West has diminished under the pressure of strikes by the US military and CIA aircraft, it is still one of the world’s most potent forces.

It remains to be seen how much al-Rimi’s death will set the group back.

The CIA learned of al-Rimi’s location from an informer in Yemen in November, allowing the government to begin tracking him with surveillance drones, an official said.

Al-Rimi, 41, was among the few remaining al-Qaida leaders whose terrorist pedigree traces to the era before the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.

© 2019 New York Times News Service