Al-Qaeda's No. 2 'died of wounds from US drone attack' in Yemen
Washington, Jan 25 (ANI)
Al-Qaeda's No. 2 in Yemen died of wounds sustained in a U.S. drone attack last year in southern Yemen, a report has said.
The country's official news agency and a security official said that Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi national who fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, was wounded in a missile attack in the southern city of Saada on November 28.
The agency said that he had fallen into a coma since then, Fox News reports.
It was not clear when he actually died, the report said.
According to the report, a security official said that the missile had been fired by a U.S., operated, unmanned drone aircraft.
Yemen had previously announced al-Shihri's death in a September 10 drone attack in the province of Hadramawt.
A subsequent DNA test however proved that the body recovered was not that of al-Shihri.
On Oct. 22, al-Shihri denied his own death in audio message posted on Jihadi websites.
According to the report, Al-Shihri's death is considered a major blow to al-Qaida's Yemen branch, known as Al-Qaeda in The Arabian Peninsula.
Washington considers it the most dangerous of the group's offshoots.