Drone kills Al Qaeda leader
Al Qaeda announces the death of one of their senior leaders along with other operatives by drone strike. A U.S. based security firm confirms this statement.
A senior al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader who claimed the group’s responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the murder of an American hostage during a botched raid in December has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.
American carries out suicide bombing
An American detonates a suicide bomb in Syria on behalf of al-Nusra Front, the Syrian arm of Al Qaeda, driving a truck laden with 16 tons of explosives into a restaurant patronized by government troops in the northwestern city of Idlib. The group tweets a statement confirming the bombing, referring to him by his nom de guerre, ‘the American father of the kitten’:
Abu Hurayra Al-Amriki performed a martrydom operation in Idlib, Jabal Al-Arba’een. May Allah accept him.
The U.S. government identifies him as Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, of Florida.