Batarfi… Who is the terrorist whose head that is worth $5 million?

The US State Department’s Rewards for Justice program has announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen, Khalid Batarfi.

The program tweeted : “While al-Qaeda’s leaders have been demobilized and are playing in Iran, where they are based, Khalid Batarfi and his followers are carrying out the instructions of these leaders to shed the blood of innocent people in Yemen,” he said. “There is no place for al-Qaeda traitors in Yemen now and in the future.”

The program identified a special number to communicate with via WhatsApp and Telegram to provide any information leading to the al-Qaeda leader in Yemen.

Khalid Said Batarfi as new leader

Earlier last year, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula announced that the appointment of Khalid Said Batarfi as the group’s new leader to replace Qasim al-Raymi, who was killed in a US drone strike in the eastern province of Marib.

Following his appointment, Batarfi pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, promising Washington that his group would be “a nightmare that will trouble Americans”.

He oversaw the group’s Yemen-based media network and led fighters in the Yemeni government’s 2011 war against al-Qaeda in Abyan province. He led the extremists who took control of Abyan province that year.

Batarfi escape from arrest

“In March 2011, he was captured by Yemeni security forces, but in 2015 AQAP militants attacked the Mukalla prison where he was held, and managed to smuggle in some 270 prisoners, including Batarfi.”

He is also one of the founding leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and served as a member of the al-Qaeda leadership council, known as the Global Shura Council, after al-Raymi’s death.

“A UN report in February this year discussed by the Security Council spoke of Batarfi’s arrest, before this turned out to be untrue.”