CIA Kills al Qaeda’s No. 2 Leader

In a U.S. airstrike in Libya over the weekend, U.S. officials believe they killed North African militant leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, although extremists in Africa suggested Mr. Belmokhtar survived the attack. He is a former al Qaeda leader who in 2013 held 800 hostages at an Algerian gas plant, killing 38 of them, including three Americans.
Mr. Wuhayshi is one of four senior al Qaeda leaders killed in U.S. strikes since January after a decadelong hunt for the men. All four leaders commanded the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which U.S. officials consider the deadliest al Qaeda franchise for its ability to launch global attacks.
A Central Intelligence Agency drone strike in Yemen killed the No. 2 al Qaeda leader in the world, officials said on Tuesday, delivering a serious blow to the militant group’s operations and a much-needed success for America’s global counterterrorism campaign.
Coming on the heels of a U.S. military strike in Libya that was believed to have killed another high-level al Qaeda militant, the death of Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of its Yemen branch and the global organization’s second-in-command, demonstrated America’s ability to hit key leaders in remote corners of the world.

At the same time, U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters this week seized a key Islamic State holding, the Syrian city of Tal Abyad, in a quick rout of extremist forces.

The boost came as American counterterrorism officials have struggled against setbacks stretching from Iraq and Syria, where Islamic State forces recently seized key cities, to Yemen, where U.S. counterterrorism operations have been hobbled by the civil war.
“Even though we no longer have a presence in Yemen, no more boots on the ground; we don’t have a presence in Libya; but we still have a global reach,” said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. “We still retain the ability to find and kill terrorists wherever they are hiding in the world.”
However, there were several notes of caution, and U.S. officials were careful not pronounce a shift in momentum in the war against al Qaeda, Islamic State or other militant groups.
“These are good days, but this is a long-term conflict with ebbs and flows,” said one senior U.S. military official. “This is going to be difficult and we are going to have gains and losses.”
As one of its biggest challenges, the U.S. counterterrorism campaign still lacks allies on the ground in places like Yemen and Libya who can take advantage of American airstrikes the way Iraqi and Kurdish forces are doing in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
“There aren’t many instruments the U.S. is using outside of kinetic strikes,” said Seth Jones, a former Pentagon official who now serves as director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corp. “In both Libya and Yemen, there aren’t many other effective instruments, and strikes will not degrade these organizations in any meaningful way. These are positive steps, but there are huge challenges in both locations.”