(Previous Incident Code: YEM188 )

Two significant AQAP figures were killed in a US drone strike in Mukalla – the capital of Hadramout province.

Between five and seven people were killed in a strike that hit the Corniche on the sea front in Mukalla. One of AQAP’s key ideologues, Nasser al Ansi, and its chief spokesman, Mohanned Ghallab, were among the dead.

Nasser al Ansi (from al Qaeda propaganda video)

Ansi, from the southern Yemeni city of Taiz, was described as al Qaeda’s “deputy general manager” by the Long War Journal. He was deputy to Nasir al Wuhayshi, AQAP’s leader and al Qaeda’s general manager overall. Ansi claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris on behalf of AQAP. The video eulogy said Ansi “took courage and wisdom from” Osama bin Laden, “as well as the jurisprudence of jihad, movement, and the call”. He was said to have “drank from the knowledge of the top leaders”.

Ansi was reportedly a veteran of fighting in Bosnia during the Balkans conflict in 1995. He subsequently traveled to Afghanistan via Yemen and Kashmir to train with al Qaeda. While there bin Laden “tasked him with administrative affairs, before he entered the military field”. He reportedly joined AQAP in 2011.

Ansi’s eldest son, Mohamed, was also killed in the strike. It is not known how old he was when he was killed.

Ghallab was AQAP’s 35 year old Egyptian spokesman. He began contact international journalists in 2012 in a bid to put out “an English-speaking voice to counter the Washington and Western media narrative,” according to The Intercept. The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 spurred him on his path to Yemen, he said: “I saw good Muslim youth making sacrifices for the sake of Islam while I cared about myself only… I started to reflect on what America was doing. I started to pray and read Quran… I let my beard grow. I looked Islamic. I felt Islamic.”

أبوحفص المصري … مهند غلاب لاأدري من أين أبدأوماذا أخط تتزاحم الذكريات في عقلي ويعتصرالألم قلبي #استشهاد_مهند_غلاب pic.twitter.com/R8GV9SKbA0

— محب الرحمن (@ahmad12121210) April 26, 2015

AQAP spokesman Mohannad Ghallab

By the time he died, he had become a widely quoted, anonymous AQAP source in several Western media outlets – including the Bureau. AQAP overran Mukalla in April, exploiting the chaos of civil war to take territory in eastern Yemen. The group emptied the local branch of the central bank and attacked the prison, releasing hundreds of prisoners. Among them was Khalid Saeed Batarfi who read the 11 minute video eulogy to al Ansi, released online by AQAP on May 7. The drone reportedly hit while the men were eating an evening meal on the Corniche in the coastal city however it was not exactly clear what time.

A source close to AQAP told local news website Mukalla Star said the strike hit at 10pm. However residents told another local news website, Hona Hadramout, that the strike hit at or after midnight meaning the attack may have hit on April 22. Some reports said the men were killed in car, either parked or moving. However there is no evidence of a wreckage from a strike on a vehicle in pictures of the strike published by Hona Hadramout or a video of the strike shot by a local journalist and distributed by Transterra Media.