UNITED NATIONS, United States – The leader of Al-Qaeda s Yemeni affiliatehas been under arrest for several months, according to a United Nationsreport released on Thursday, in what will be seen as a huge breakthrough inthe fight against the global jihadist threat.
The document said Khalid Batarfi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the ArabianPeninsula (AQAP) for just under a year, was arrested and his deputy, SaadAtef al-Awlaqi, died during an “operation in Ghayda City, Al-MahrahGovernorate, in October.”
The report — filed to the Security Council from a UN monitoring teamspecializing in extremist groups — is the first official confirmation ofBatarfi s arrest following unverified reports.
The wide-ranging UN assessment, summarizing global potential jihadistthreats, did not disclose the militant s whereabouts or reveal any furtherdetails of the October operation.
But the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the online activity ofjihadist organisations, noted “unconfirmed reports” in October that Batarfihad been arrested by Yemeni security forces and then handed to Saudi Arabia.
AQAP revealed it had appointed Batarfi, believed to be in his early 40s, asits leader in February 2020 following the death of his predecessor Qassimal-Rimi in a US air strike in Yemen.
Batarfi, who was designated a global terrorist by the US State Departmentin 2018, has appeared in numerous AQAP videos over recent years, accordingto SITE, and appeared to have been Rimi s deputy and group spokesman.
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Washington considers AQAP to be the worldwide jihadist network s mostdangerous branch, and has waged a long-running drone war against theleaders of the group.
AQAP claimed responsibility for the 2019 mass shooting at a US naval basein Florida, in which a Saudi air force officer killed three Americansailors.
It also said it was behind the 2009 pants bomb plot, in which anexplosive device failed to detonate on a Northwest Airlines flight as itapproached the US city of Detroit on Christmas Day.
The Sunni extremist group thrived in the chaos of years of civil warbetween Yemen s Saudi-backed government and Shiite Huthi rebels.
Rimi had himself succeeded Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who was killed in a US dronestrike in Yemen in June 2015. APP/AFP
