Shehri was released from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in 2007 and was flown to Saudi Arabia, where he was put through a rehabilitation programme.
After completing the programme, the militant leader disappeared only to resurface later as AQAP’s number two.
“Sheikh Saeed al-Shehri, aka Abu Sufyan al-Azdi, was killed in a US drone strike,” said an AQAP leader, Ibrahim al-Rubaish, in a video posted on Islamist websites yesterday.
Rubaish, who gave no indication of when Shehri was killed, said that “lax security measures during his telephone contacts has enabled the enemy to (identify and) kill him”.
In a eulogy to Shehri, he said he had “planned the kidnap of the Saudi deputy consul in Aden”, Abdullah al-Khalidi, who has been held captive by AQAP since March 2012.
AQAP militants are demanding the release of female Al Qaeda-linked prisoners held in Saudi in return for Khalidi’s release.
Shehri had been hounded by Yemen’s security forces and had survived a number of attempts on his life.
His death had been announced several times by the Yemeni authorities, most recently on January 24.
In April, AQAP released an audio message purported to be a newly-delivered address by Shehri.
Last October, Shehri himself denied a September announcement by Yemen’s defence ministry that he had been killed in an army raid, in an audio message posted on extremist Internet forums.
An official Yemeni statement in January called him “one of the (Al Qaeda) leaders who played a major role in the planning of local, regional and international terrorist acts”.
