US 'killed Al-Qaeda's second-in-command by accident'
CIA did not know that Nasser al-Wuhayshi was one of three jihadists a drone strike was about to hit
The United States killed al-Qaeda’s second-in-command by accident, reports in Washington have said.
In comparison with the years of meticulous planning and analysis of intelligence which led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, the CIA had no idea that Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of Yemen’s branch of al-Qaeda was among those a targeted strike was about to kill.
The revelation, in the Washington Post, gives an explanation for the delay in confirmation of his death until three days after he was among three jihadists hit by a missile in the Yemeni coastal town of Mukalla.
Officials told the newspaper that the drone had conducted a so-called “signature strike” - where a strike is authorised because of “patterns of activity” that suggest al-Qaeda targets are moving on the ground.
But the CIA “did not know in advance that al-Qaeda’s leader in Yemen was among the suspected militants targeted”, it said.
Wuhayshi, though only 38, was a long-term al-Qaeda operative who worked alongside Osama Bin Laden in the 1990s in Afghanistan.
He escaped from a Yemen prison in 2006 along with other jihadis, and re-founded Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. His skills at running both a ground insurgency against the Yemeni government and operations against the West were such that he was named deputy overall leader to Ayman al-Zawahiri two years ago.
The US had put a bounty on his head of $10 million, but had seen AQAP expand its territory in Yemen in recent months as a result of the civil war between the westerrn-backed government and a rebel militia backed by Iran, the Houthis.
In “signature strikes”, general intelligence including the US’s extensive network of phone and other communications intercepts are used to target gatherings of jihadist suspects without it being clear exactly who is there.
They have been criticised for putting civilians at risk - though the US insists that its guidelines insist on a “near certainty” that no civilians will be killed.
The suggestion that the death of Wuhayshi was in this sense accidental will come as a shock to AQAP.
Jihadist social media accounts announced that a number of men had been executed as spies following Wuhayshi’s death, including a former AQAP “media worker” called Humam Al-Hamid, who was said to have given the Americans co-ordinates for the strike.
A photograph posted online showed two men kneeling before executioners on the beach near Mukalla, awaiting their deaths before a large crowd.
The United States killed al-Qaeda’s second-in-command by accident, reports in Washington have said.
In comparison with the years of meticulous planning and analysis of intelligence which led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, the CIA had no idea that Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of Yemen’s branch of al-Qaeda was among those a targeted strike was about to kill.
The revelation, in the Washington Post, gives an explanation for the delay in confirmation of his death until three days after he was among three jihadists hit by a missile in the Yemeni coastal town of Mukalla.
Officials told the newspaper that the drone had conducted a so-called “signature strike” - where a strike is authorised because of “patterns of activity” that suggest al-Qaeda targets are moving on the ground.
But the CIA “did not know in advance that al-Qaeda’s leader in Yemen was among the suspected militants targeted”, it said.
Wuhayshi, though only 38, was a long-term al-Qaeda operative who worked alongside Osama Bin Laden in the 1990s in Afghanistan.
He escaped from a Yemen prison in 2006 along with other jihadis, and re-founded Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. His skills at running both a ground insurgency against the Yemeni government and operations against the West were such that he was named deputy overall leader to Ayman al-Zawahiri two years ago.
The US had put a bounty on his head of $10 million, but had seen AQAP expand its territory in Yemen in recent months as a result of the civil war between the westerrn-backed government and a rebel militia backed by Iran, the Houthis.
In “signature strikes”, general intelligence including the US’s extensive network of phone and other communications intercepts are used to target gatherings of jihadist suspects without it being clear exactly who is there.
They have been criticised for putting civilians at risk - though the US insists that its guidelines insist on a “near certainty” that no civilians will be killed.
The suggestion that the death of Wuhayshi was in this sense accidental will come as a shock to AQAP.
Jihadist social media accounts announced that a number of men had been executed as spies following Wuhayshi’s death, including a former AQAP “media worker” called Humam Al-Hamid, who was said to have given the Americans co-ordinates for the strike.
A photograph posted online showed two men kneeling before executioners on the beach near Mukalla, awaiting their deaths before a large crowd.
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