Batarfi reappears in video showing he is free
The leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Khalid Batarfi, has reappeared in a video shared on social networks, denying that he is being held in detention. A United Nations report presented to the Security Council a few days ago indicated that the leader of the Al Qaeda branch located in Yemen had been arrested during an operation carried out in the town of Ghayda. Also according to the report, his second-in-command, Saad Atef al-Awlaqi, was also killed.
In the video, which is about 20 minutes long, the leader of the organisation, who has been in charge for a year, is shown in perfect condition and with a typical Yemeni dagger on his belt. Khalid Batarfi talks about the situation in Washington at the beginning of January, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol and provoked riots in various parts of the country. These words are accompanied by images of the fateful day in which five people died. The fact that Batarfi mentions this fact during the video indicates that he is not in detention, as the UN report insinuated, but is at liberty.
The report did not give any details of the operation carried out in Yemen, although it is assumed that it was carried out by Yemeni forces. Nor does it indicate whether or where Batarfi was still being held. The release of the video would corroborate the version of several tribal leaders in the region where Ghayda is located, who say that Batarfi was mistaken for another member of the organisation.
Khalid warns that "what happened on 6 January in Washington is just the tip of the iceberg of what awaits them", and "a consequence of the arrogance with which the US moves in the world". Khalid Batarfi was put in charge of AQAP in February 2020, following the death of Qassim al-Rimi in a US airstrike. Khalid's arrest would have been a serious blow to the organisation, which, after the death of its former leader and the confrontation with all the actors involved in the Yemeni conflict, both the Houthis and the government, is experiencing very low hours.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was the branch that claimed responsibility for the attack on Charlie Hebdo's headquarters on 7 January 2015. Following the attack, one of AQPA's military leaders at the time, Nasr bin Ali al-Anesi, went on video to show his support for the Kouachi brothers, who were responsible for the deaths of twelve people in the assault on the French satirical magazine's headquarters. Al-Anesi said that both Sarif and Cheif Kouachi acted under the mandate of the organisation present in Yemen, which planned, financed and targeted the two brothers.
Because of this attack and the attack on a Florida naval base in 2019, in which three people were killed, the United States considers AQAP to be one of the most dangerous branches of the terrorist organisation, which took advantage of the 2014 uprising in Yemen to gain a presence in the south of the country. Therefore, just as he did with the previous man in charge of AQAP, Joe Biden has stated that he will continue with the attacks against the organisation in Yemen.
