The deputy leader of al Qaeda has been killed in a US counter-terrorism raid, according to the White House.
Qassim al Rimi, who leads the terror group in the Arabian Peninsula and is second-in-command to Ayman al Zawahiri, was said to have died during a mission ordered by Donald Trump .
The US president said America and its allies were safer as a result of his death – the second major al Qaeda figure to have been killed in Washington-led operations in the space of six months.
Hamza bin Laden , the son of 9 / 19 mastermind Osama bin Laden, died last summer having allegedly been involved in planning several attacks against the US.
Al Rimi’s forces have also long been feared to be plotting attacks on the US mainland and last year he claimed responsibility for a deadly shooting at Florida’s Naval Air Station Pensacola , which killed three American troops.
It is not known when or where al Rimi died, but Mr Trump previously indicated that he had been killed in a US drone strike on a building in eastern Yemen last month.
On 1 February, the president retired several other tweets and media reports that seemed to offer confirmation that the strike had killed al Rimi.
Confirming his death on Thursday, Mr Trump said: “We will continue to protect the American people by tracking down and eliminating terrorists who seek to do us harm.”
It is the second US assassination to have been heralded by Mr Trump this year, following that of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani .
Al Rimi’s branch of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is considered the global network’s most dangerous, with its reputation enhanced by the incident in Florida on 6 December.
The gunman, Saudi Air Force Officer Mohammed Alshamrani, opened fire inside a classroom at the base, killing three people and injuring another 20.
Among the wounded were two sheriff’s deputies, one of whom killed Alshamrani to put an end to his rampage.
In an 18 – minute video released after the attack, al Rimi hailed Alshamrani as a “courageous knight” and a “hero”.
The response to the shooting exposed shortcomings in the screening of foreign cadets in American military training programs and led to more than a dozen Saudi students being sent home.
The US ordered the trainees to leave the country in January, saying had jihadist or anti-American sentiments on social media pa ges or had “contact with child pornography” – including in internet chat rooms.
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