Rep. Michael McCaul, the leading Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is praising a recent strike that killed the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in January in what he calls a “significant blow” to the terrorist organization.
President Trump on Thursday night confirmed that U.S. forces had killed Qasim al-Rimi in a drone strike in central Yemen last month.
The latest strike came nearly a month after the U.S. launched a fatal attack on the leader of Iran’s Quds Force.
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“America and our allies are safer today because these terrorists have been brought to justice,” Mr. McCaul of Texas said in a statement, and highlighted recent counterterrorism operations that resulted in the deaths of two other leaders of terrorist organizations.
Mr. Trump said he authorized the operation that killed al-Rimi, a deputy to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri who had worked in Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.
The ranking member of the House panel explained that al-Rimi’s organization “sowed chaos in Yemen and violently attacked innocent civilians. They also plotted multiple attacks against Americans and our forces.”
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