Sanaa: Said al-Shehri, top Saudi in al Qaeda’s Yemen-based wing, has denied his death reports in an audio message, according to US-based SITE Intelligence Group.
He said the death reports are fake, aiming to hide the civilian killing on drone strikes.
“The news that was reported about my killing in the Arabian Peninsula is a rumor to cover up the killing of the innocent, unarmed Muslims in Yemen, who were killed by American drones in the east and west,” said the man claiming to be Shehri.
Yemen PM’s adviser said the audio “seemed authentic”: “From start we had doubts that Shehri was killed and we became sure later on that he was still alive.”
The Yemeni Ministry of Defense website said on September 10 that Shehri and six other militants were killed during a Yemeni army operation in the remote Hadramout province in eastern Yemen. It gave no further details.
But a Yemeni security source had said Shehri was killed in Hadramout by a U.S. drone, rather than by the Yemeni military. U.S. officials declined to comment on the drone strike report.
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