Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch confirmed in a statement released Tuesday that its top cleric, Ibrahim al-Rubaish, has been killed in a drone strike.
The Saudi national and former detainee at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba had a $5 million bounty on his head when he died this weekend. The cleric was released from U.S. custody in 2006 and sent to a rehabilitation center in Saudi Arabia, but he escaped.
“I ask God that efforts are united to target the enemies of the religion,” the cleric said last year with the emergence of the Islamic State group, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
U.S. officials and Yemeni officials had no immediate comment on the claim of al-Rubaish’s demise, CBS reported.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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