The center indicated that the organization’s legal official, Ibrahim al-Qusi, confirmed in a recording broadcast on Sunday the killing of Batarfi, the organization’s leader since February 2020, declaring that “Saad bin Atef Al-Awlaki He is the new leader of the Organization in the Arabian Peninsula, which the United States classifies as a terrorist.
And it was BatarfiHe is a Saudi born in Riyadh in his early forties. He assumed leadership of the organization in February 2020 after its leader, Qasim al-Rimi, was killed in an American drone attack, noting that the latter’s predecessor, Nasser al-Wahayshi, was killed by an American drone bombing in Yemen in June 2015.
Before assuming leadership of the organization, Batarfi worked as a Sharia judge and official spokesman for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In 2018, the United States classified him as a “global terrorist” and offered a reward of five million dollars in exchange for providing 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 Shura Council and on the list of the American “Rewards for Justice Program.” The United States offered a reward of up to six million dollars to anyone who provides information about him.
The US State Department says that Al-Awlaki “publicly called for attacks on the United States and its allies.”
The organization’s presence has grown Al-Qaeda in Arabiawhich was founded in 2009, like other extremist groups, in the midst of the chaos caused by the war between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels.
But the strikes launched by the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, especially between March 2015 and April 2022, as well as the United States, weakened the organization and other groups that took advantage of the chaos in the region.
The United States considers Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen, the most dangerous branch Al-Qaeda.
The organization claimed responsibility for several attacks, especially an attack targeting the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris in 2015, which resulted in the deaths of 12 people.
It also constantly launches attacks targeting Yemeni soldiers, most notably last September when four soldiers were killed in an attack in Shabwa Governorate, southeast YemenAnd four members of the “Security Belt” forces supporting the secession of southern Yemen in the explosion of an explosive device planted by Al-Qaeda in August.
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