The State Department has announced a $ 5 million reward for information leading to the capture of al-Qaeda leader Khaled al-Batrifi’s hideout in Yemen.
The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program tweeted that a senior al-Qaeda member in Yemen had claimed responsibility for an attack on a US naval base in Florida in December 2019 that killed three sailors. “If you have any information about him, text us.”
“There is no place for al-Qaeda traitors in Yemen, neither now nor in the future,” the State Department said.
Al-Arabiya also wrote that “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” announced early last year that it had appointed Khalid Saeed Batarefi as the successor to Qassim al-Rimi, the former al-Qaeda leader in the region who was killed by an American drone.
Prior to his appointment, Batarefi declared allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and threatened to “turn it into a nightmare for American forces.”
He previously ran al-Qaeda in Iraq. In addition, he commanded al-Qaeda forces in a 2011 battle with the Yemeni government in Abyan province. Named “Abu al-Muqaddad Kennedy”, he controlled the most extremist al-Qaeda forces in the attack on Yemen’s Abin province that year, and as a result occupied the province for a long time.
In 2011, Yemeni government forces managed to capture him. But four years later, at the same time as occupying Sanaa, al-Qaeda forces stormed the Makla prison, where he was being held, and released him along with 270 al-Qaeda operatives.