WASHINGTON — A CIA drone strike has killed the leader of al-Qaida’s feared affiliate in Yemen, a group that has repeatedly sought to launch ambitious attacks on or over American soil, al-Qaida confirmed Tuesday.
Nasir Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi had evaded U.S. drones and counterterrorism raids in Yemen for years while leading what many analysts consider to be the terrorist network’s most dangerous and active chapter, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
Under al-Wahishi’s leadership, AQAP, as the group is known, repeatedly attempted to smuggle sophisticated bombs onto passenger jets and cargo planes headed for the United States. The group specialized in bombs designed to be hidden in body cavities or smuggled through airport security.
American officials had been working to verify reports from Yemen that al-Wahishi was killed in a U.S. drone strike in the southern port city of Mukalla on Friday.
There is “no reason to doubt that claim,” a counterterrorism official said Monday.
