A Saudi who was freed from Guantanamo Bay only to become second-in-command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been killed, Sky News reports.
Said al Shehri died in a United States-led drone strike in Yemen, senior AQAP official Ibrahim al Rubaish said in a video statement posted online.
“I present my condolences to all the Mujahideen on the martyrdom of Said al-Shehri who was killed in a U.S drone attack,” said Rubaish.
He did not say when the strike took place.
Shehri was taken to the Cuban detention facility in 2002 after Pakistan handed him to the U.S authorities.
He was returned to Saudi Arabia in late 2007 and later fled to Yemen to join the al Qaeda branch there.
Shehri’s death has been announced several times by the Yemeni authorities, most recently on January 24.
Last October, Shehri himself denied a September announcement by Yemen’s defence ministry that he had been killed in an army raid, in an audio message posted on extremist internet forums.
An official Yemeni statement in January called him “one of the (al Qaeda) leaders who played a major role in the planning of local, regional and international terrorist acts.”
via nigerianeye
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