Al Qaeda militants in Yemen killed two alleged Saudi spies on Wednesday, residents said, accusing them of planting tracking devices which enabled the assassination of the group’s leader in a suspected U.S. drone strike last week.
The two were accused of secreting tracking devices on the clothing and vehicles of al-Qaeda commanders, thus allowing US drones to track and target them, said a local official in southeastern port city of Mukalla on Wednesday.
The terrorists first read out the charges and then shot them. One of them was accused of directly guiding a US drone attack that killed senior al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Nasr al-Ansi and a media officer known as Muhannad Ghalab in April.
On the scene witnesses said that the execution was carried out on a sandy beach in front of a public gathering, adding that the bodies were later hung off a bridge.
According to reports, al-Qaeda supporters posted pictures of the men’s execution and their bloody bodies after the incident. In some of the posts, they accused one of the Saudis of being a member of the ISIL terrorist group.
The execution took place just days after Yemen-based AQAP confirmed that its senior leader, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, was killed in a US drone strike.
Wuhayshi was the head of the AQAP and al-Qaeda’s second in command. According to reports, AQAP military commander Qasm al-Rimi, aka Abu Hureira al-Sanaani, was appointed as his replacement.
Nasir Wahisi, a former senior lieutenant of Osama bin Laden killed in American drone strike
