ADEN/WASHINGTON – A Saudi national freed by US authorities from detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who then became second-in-command of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, was killed in Yemen, a Yemeni government website said.
The Yemeni ministry of defence website said Shehri was killed yesterday, along with six other militants, in what it called a “qualitative operation” by Yemen’s army in the remote Hadramout province in eastern Yemen. It gave no further details.
There were conflicting reports on how Shehri died. A Yemeni security source said Shehri was killed in an operation last Wednesday in the Hadramout that was thought to have been carried out by a US drone, rather than the Yemeni military.
The source said another Saudi and an Iraqi national were among the others killed. US officials declined to comment on whether a drone strike had occurred.
They officials described Shehri as one of the most important al-Qaeda-linked militants to be released from the Guantánamo detention facility, where he was taken in January 2002 after being handed over by Pakistan to US authorities.
A former officer in Saudi Arabia’s internal security force, Shehri allegedly joined al-Qaeda and helped to facilitate the movements of Saudi militants seeking to travel to Afghanistan via Iran, according to a classified Pentagon report made public by WikiLeaks.
According to the Pentagon document, Shehri was “assessed to be a high risk” prisoner because “he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” – (Reuters)