Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader targeted, possibly killed by U.S. drone attack in Yemen: report

Nasir al-Wuhayshi, leader of the al-Qaida branch in Yemen and second-in-command in the terror group, was targeted, and possibly killed, in a U.S. drone attack last week, U.S. media reported Monday.

The U.S. government is still poring over intelligence on the June 9 attack, operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, to verify that Wuhayshi was killed in Yemen's Hadramout region, U.S. officials were quoted by The Washington Post as saying.

"We are looking to confirm his death," a U.S. intelligence official was quoted as saying.

Xinhua earlier quoted two Yemeni security officials, who asked to remain anonymous, as saying Wuhayshi was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

As the leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Wuhayshi was considered a major terror threat to the United States, which has been using drone strikes to target al-Qaida members in Yemen.

Wuhayshi's death could trigger a broader leadership crisis for al-Qaida. As a former aide to late al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden, Wuhayshi was named in 2013 as al-Qaida's second-in-command and apparent heir to leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the report said.

The news came one day after the Pentagon's announcement that it launched a "counterterrorism" airstrike Saturday that targeted and hit Mokhtar Belmokhtar, commander of the al-Qaida-affiliated terror group the Al-Murabitoon, in the city of Ajdabiya, eastern Libya. The Libyan government said Belmokhtar was killed in the strike.

Belmokhtar was responsible for killing at least 37 hostages, including three Americans, in an attack on a gas plant in Algeria in 2013. Endi