U.S. Drone Kills Top al-Qaeda Leader in Yemen, Group Says

Saeed al-Shihri, co-founder of Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed by a U.S. drone strike, Ibrahim al-Rubeish, a member of the group, said in a YouTube video posted yesterday.

Al-Shihri, a former Guantanamo detainee, was one of the most wanted men in Saudi Arabia. The Yemeni government reported his death in January, saying he succumbed to wounds he sustained in Yemen two months earlier and had been buried in an undisclosed location in Yemen by al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Al-Shihri helped merge the Saudi and Yemeni branches of the group into al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula following a crackdown in Saudi Arabia that led to the death or imprisonment of many of its leaders.