Updated: US disputes UN report on capture of Al-Qaeda’s top man in Yemen
The report said Khalid Batarfi was handed over to Saudi authorities, yet a US officials says he's still at large.
While a recent United Nations report claimed the head of al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, Khalid Batarfi, was captured in the country’s eastern Mahra governorate in October, a newly released video depicting Batarfi contradicts this account.
The operation was reported to have taken place in the town of al-Ghayda and led to the death of the local franchise’s second-in-command, Saad Atef al-Awlaqi.
The UN report did not say who conducted the operation. Although a spokesperson for US Central Command had initially credited Yemen’s armed forces with capturing Batarfi, one of the highest-ranking al-Qaeda officials, on Thursday a US official clarified to Al-Monitor that the military assesses Batarfi has not been captured at this time. The spokesperson at US Central Command apologized for the error.
The claim of the jihadi leader’s detention follows a series of heavy blows to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in recent years. The group has suffered significant defections and dissension and has largely been driven out of al-Bayda governorate. Al-Khidr al-Walidi, the group’s top official in Abyan province, was killed in an operation in November, the UN report noted.
