Al-Qaeda roars back into business in Arabia; Targeted assassination?

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The killing of the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Nasir al-Wuhayshi in a US drone attack in Yemen on Monday was in reality a targeted political assassination, although packaged as the latest act in Washington’s relentless war against terrorists.

The Aj Jazeera has exposed that the AQAP’s military commander Qassim al-Raymi who has been elevated as the new leader of the group after Wuhayshi’s murder has a colorful past. It has come to light that Raymi used to work for the intelligence agency of the Yemeni government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, which of course had enjoyed the backing of Saudi Arabia and the US.

Al Jazeera cites Raymi as “a creation of Yemen’s National Security Bureau.” Curiously, while the US drone attacks eviscerated practically the entire AQAP leadership through the recent years, Raymi “miraculously survived Yemeni security force raids as well as cruise missile strikes… Raymi is part of a sinister double-game that has shielded him from capture and drone targeting all these years… Was Wuhayshi’s killing the ultimate power play?”

http://atimes.com/2015/06/al-qaeda-roars-back-into-business-in-arabia-targeted-assassination/

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1. After the death of a senior leader in Yemen, al-Qaida faces new challenges and opportunities

The killing of Nasir al-Wuhayshi, reportedly via U.S. drone strike, is not just another notch in the belt of America’s long campaign against al-Qaida and its allies. Wuhayshi was one of al-Qaida’s top remaining leaders, and he is the highest-level death the organization has suffered since Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. Wuhayshi headed al-Qaida’s most active affiliate, the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and was the designated successor of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. His killing adds one more element of uncertainty to the turbulence in Yemen and may set AQAP on a new path. Which path, however, remains an open question.

Wuhayshi helped transform AQAP from a fractious organization on the edge of defeat to one that menaces both Yemen and the United States. A decade ago, Yemen’s jihadi movement seemed near defeat. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Yemeni government rounded up jihadis and imprisoned Wuhayshi, and it was Saudi Arabia, not Yemen, that was the focus of jihadis in the Arabian Peninsula. In 2003, al-Qaida sponsored the original AQAP’s uprising against the Saudi government. Several years later, most of AQAP’s Saudi members were dead or in jail, and its remnants had fled to Yemen. There, they mixed with Yemeni jihadis, including important figures like Wuhayshi, who had escaped from Yemen’s jails in 2006. In 2009, two regional Islamist groups merged and formally anointed themselves AQAP, basing their operations in Yemen and trying to unseat the government. As Osama bin Laden’s former secretary, Wuhayshi became the group’s leader and embraced al-Qaida’s emphasis on attacking Western targets.

The group made fitful progress, at times taking territory but often losing it quickly after alienating locals and proving vulnerable to government counterattacks. But when the government of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh fell in 2012 during the Arab Spring, AQAP tried to step into the void. Saleh’s successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, pursued AQAP vigorously, but his weak government was unable to score any lasting successes.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/06/18-can-aqap-survive-death-of-wuhayshi