Days after a raid on an al Qaeda compound in Yemen led to the first US military combat death under Donald Trump, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released an audio message taunting the new American President.
In an 11-minute recording, AQAP leader Qassim al-Rimi condemned the January 29 raid, saying, “The new fool of the White House received a painful slap across his face.”
The message was released online Saturday and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
In the recording, Rimi also claimed “dozens of Americans were killed and wounded,” a number starkly at odds with the US account, which reported the death of one Navy SEAL, Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens. Three additional SEALs also were wounded.
Rimi acknowledged the deaths of 14 men and 11 women and children in the raid, a joint counterterrorism effort between the United States and United Arab Emirates.
A senior US military official told CNN on Monday that Rimi was the target of the operation. The recording was released after last week’s raid.
Civilian deaths
Reportedly among the dead was the 8-year-old the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the late US-born cleric who directed attacks against the United States. Awlaki was killed in 2011.
Reprieve, a London-based nongovernmental organization, and a Sanaa-based human rights worker told CNN that at least 23 civilians were killed in the attack.
“When the Americans escaped, they dragged their killed and wounded, and they found no other alternative but to destroy their own planes so that it would not be proof of their scandal,” Rimi said.
The senior US military official told CNN on Monday that intelligence collection wasn’t the only objective of the Yemen raid but that it had also targeted Rimi.
In the event Rimi wasn’t there, the US military believed it would find intelligence that would help lead to him, the official said.
But US Central Command, which oversees forces in the region, had strongly disputed that Rimi was the objective of the raid more than a week ago.
“It wasn’t a high-value target mission,” Col. John Thomas told CNN, referring to operations aimed at killing or capturing terrorist leaders.
Thomas added no hard intelligence indicated a “high possibility” Rimi was at the compound on the night of the raid, saying that Navy SEALs would have captured any leaders of the al Qaeda affiliate, including Rimi, as part of an intelligence-gathering operation.
“Anyone found on site would have been taken,” Thomas said.
NBC first reported that Rimi was a target of the raid.
The chance to take out such a pivotal member of al Qaeda may explain the large allocation of resources used in the mission.
Raid missteps
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters detected the SEAL team before it reached its objective, leading to an intense firefight.
Following news of the raid, the military had said the goal of the mission was to gather intelligence on the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.
On Friday, the Pentagon released clips from an al Qaeda training video seized during the raid but later pulled them because the video was nearly a decade old.
Government officials previously told CNN plans for the raid had been in the works for months and that Trump green-lighted the mission shortly after his inauguration.
The Pentagon said the battle resulted in the deaths of 14 al Qaeda fighters, including two AQAP leaders.
Many observers have considered al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula among the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, branch of al Qaeda since its formation in 2009.
Rimi reportedly became its leader following a 2015 drone strike that killed Nasir al-Wuhayshi.
