Qassem al-Raymi, we hardly knew ye

Posted By David Kenner Friday, January 15, 2010 - 5:33 PM Share

Reports out of Yemen indicate that one of Yemen's most wanted, Qassem al-Raymi, was killed in a Yemeni airstrike today. As is often the case, Gregory Johnsen has the best English-language bio of al-Raymi in town: He was the long-time deputy to Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and reportedly trained in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, where he met Osama bin Laden.

A few obvious caveats: This isn't the first time that newspapers have reported al-Raymi's demise -- until AQAP confirms it, there is going to be a lingering question mark over the event. Second, whether this was really a "Yemeni airstrike," rather than a U.S. drone strike, is going to be the subject of much debate in Washington D.C. and Sanaa in the days to come. I fully concede that I have no inside knowledge of what actually occurred in the far-flung regions of northern Yemen where this attack took place. However, given what we know about the relative capacity of U.S. airpower and the Yemeni air force, I'd bet my money that a U.S. drone pilot in Virginia pulled the trigger.

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