News   /   More

Top Qaeda figure killed in Yemen drone strike

This file photo shows a US-built MQ-9 Reaper drone armed with GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided munitions.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has announced that one of its senior members has been killed in a US drone strike in Yemen amid the ongoing Saudi military campaign against the impoverished Arab country. 

The AQAP said in a statement posted on Twitter that Ibrahim al-Rubaish was killed alongside four comrades on Monday, Yemen-based Arabic-language Khabar news agency reported on Tuesday.  

The group did not specify where the purported strike took place. 

Rubaish was held in extrajudicial detention in the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He was released into the custody of Saudi authorities and then escaped in 2006.  

Ibrahim al-Rubaish, the killed leader of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)

 

The 35-year-old terrorist later joined AQAP in Yemen, where he was the main ideologue of and theological adviser to the Takfiri militant group. Rubaish had a 5-million-dollar bounty on his head. 

This is while Ansarullah fighters and army forces have made fresh gains in their battle against al-Qaeda-linked militants in the central province of Ma’rib despite ongoing Saudi airstrikes against Yemen.

The revolutionary fighters and the army troopers have made advances in the city of Sirwah, which lies about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of the capital, Sana’a. Recently, the militants reportedly executed about 15 soldiers in the Azzan region, located in the southern province of Shabwah.

The US and a few of its allies are supporting Saudi Arabia's airstrikes against Yemen.

MP/NN/HRB


Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Press TV News Roku