What Next for Al-Qaeda in Yemen after Leader Batarfi’s Death?

On March 10, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) announced the death of Khalid Batarfi the group’s leader in Yemen. AQAP Shura Council member Abu Khabib al-Sudani announced that the body had elected Saad al-Awlaqi in his place.

Batarfi, also known by his nom de guerre Abu al-Miqdad al-Kindi, owed his renown to a long career in jihadism. He was among the most prominent Saudi militants to travel to Afghanistan, where he trained at Al-Qaeda’s Al-Farouq camp from 1999. He fought alongside the Taliban against the Americans until 2010, and then moved to Yemen to fight alongside Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of Al-Qaeda there.

Batarfi was arrested in 2011. He remained in detention in Yemen until 2015, when AQAP staged a prison raid that freed hundreds of prisoners from Mukalla prison, including Batarfi. He went on to lead the group’s operations to seize control of the same city then expand in Abyan and other cities. He also served as sharia judge and official spokesman for AQAP.

On 23 January 2018, the US State Department designated Batarfi as a global terrorist in 2018 and placed a $5m (£3.9m) bounty on his head. When AQAP emir Qassim al-Rimi was killed in a US drone attack in January 2020, Batarfi assumed the leadership of the group.

Batarfi appeared in many audio and video recordings, threatening the U.S. and Israel with economic destruction and with attacks similar to 9/11. However, he failed to achieve any of this. Instead, he plunged the group into internal conflicts, leading to many of his rivals being killed on accusations of being spies, none of which were proven. He also accused Abu Omar al-Nahdi, one of the organization’s most important leaders in Yemen, of being behind al-Rimi’s assassination. This prompted several of the organization’s leading figures in Yemen to defect or to complain to the leadership, detailing Batarfi’s purge.

Some reports indicate that after Batarfi’s death and that of Abu Omar al-Suri, one of the group’s most important medical personnel, only two members of AQAP’s “old guard” in Yemen remain. They are al-Sudani, whose real name is Ibrahim al-Qusi and who has been the group’s deputy emir since 2015, and Ibrahim al-Banna, the head of Al-Qaeda’s security committee in Yemen.

The selection of al-Awlaqi - a later recruit and more junior figure - as emir confirms that the organization is attempting to maintain the tribal aspect of its leadership and win back the loyalty of the Sunni tribes where it operates, several of whom had defected in protest at Batarfi’s purge.

So who is Al-Awlaqi? Fighting as Abu al-Laith al-Yemeni, since 2015 he has been a member of the group’s Shura Council, and is on the US “Rewards for Justice” program, which offers up to $6 million for information leading to his capture.

Al-Awlaqi will likely seek to address the internal divides and crises Batarfi left behind. But this will require radical solutions, given the suspicion and distrust among the organization’s security and military leaders.

Moreover, Al-Awlaqi was one of the key enforcers of Batarfi’s campaign to dismantle the old leadership. This strategy that clashed with that of Saif al-Adel, Al-Qaeda’s de facto global leader (since the death of Aymen al-Zawahiri) who had asked the organization to retreat from Houthi rebel forces in Baydha province and to attack government forces in Shabwa.

However, Saad al-Awlaqi is more popular and influential than his predecessor. This, and his tribal ties, may give him the leverage to refuse to implement Saif al-Adel’s strategy.