Armed group suggests Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki usually takes about as new chief after Batarfi’s death, according to Site Intelligence Team.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has introduced the demise of its chief Khalid Batarfi and appointed a successor, in accordance to an intelligence service checking armed team networks around the world.

Internet site Intelligence Team reported late on Sunday that a assertion by AQAP did not give a trigger for Batarfi’s death. It reported Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki would take over as new chief.

“God took his soul when he patiently sought his reward and stood firm, immigrated, garrisoned and waged jihad,” Internet site quoted an AQAP veteran as declaring of Batarfi in a practically 15-moment video.

The clip showed Batarfi wrapped in a white funeral shroud and the black-and-white flag of al-Qaeda.

Born in Saudi Arabia and believed to have been in his 40s, Batarfi was named AQAP’s leader in early 2020 after his predecessor, Qassim al-Rimi, was killed by a United States drone strike in what then-President Donald Trump reported was a counterterrorism operation in Yemen.

Batarfi was a single of 150 jailed AQAP users who were being freed when the group captured the Yemeni port city of Mukalla in 2015, the place he was currently being held.

Web site stated the new chief, al-Awlaki, previous appeared in a online video introduced in February 2023, in which he urged Sunni tribesmen in the Yemeni provinces of Abyan and Shabwa to “resist overtures by the United Arab Emirates and the [separatist] Southern Transitional Council to join their struggle in opposition to AQAP”.

The US has a $6m reward on al-Awlaki, indicating he “has publicly called for attacks towards the United States and its allies”.

Yemen’s war broke out in late 2014 when Houthi rebels, allied with forces faithful to previous President Ali Abdullah Saleh, seized significantly of the region, which include the capital, Sanaa. The war escalated in March 2015 when a Saudi-UAE-led coalition intervened in opposition to the rebels in a bid to restore the internationally-recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The Yemen-dependent AQAP, as properly as other armed teams and fighters, have taken edge of the chaos of the war amongst the professional-government forces and the Houthis to extend their footprint.

Though analysts say the team has weakened in latest decades, AQAP has prolonged been considered by the US as the most risky branch of al-Qaeda however operating immediately after the killing of founder Osama bin Laden.

“Although in drop, AQAP continues to be the most helpful terrorist team in Yemen with intent to conduct functions in the area and outside of,” a new United Nations report on al-Qaeda explained.