INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The deputy leader of al Qaeda has been killed in a US counter-terrorism raid, according to the White House.Qassim al Rimi, who leads the
terror group in the Arabian Peninsula and is second-in-command to Ayman al Zawahiri, was said to have died during a mission ordered by
Donald Trump.The US president said America and its allies were safer as a result of his death - the second major al Qaeda figure to have
been killed in Washington-led operations in the space of six months.Image:Al Rimi was the second-in-command of the whole terror groupHamza
bin Laden, the son of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, died last summer having allegedly been involved in planning several attacks against
the US.Al Rimi's forces have also long been feared to be plotting attacks on the US mainland and last year he claimed responsibility for a
deadly shooting at Florida's Naval Air Station Pensacola, which killed three American troops.It is not known when or where al Rimi died,
but Mr Trump previously indicated that he had been killed in a US drone strike on a building in eastern Yemen last month.On 1 February, the
president retweeted several other tweets and media reports that seemed to offer confirmation that the strike had killed al Rimi.Confirming
his death on Thursday, Mr Trump said: "We will continue to protect the American people by tracking down and eliminating terrorists who seek
to do us harm."It is the second US assassination to have been heralded by Mr Trump this year, following that of top Iranian military
commander Qassem Soleimani.Image:Hamza bin Laden died in a US operation last yearAl Rimi's branch of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is
considered the global network's most dangerous, with its reputation enhanced by the incident in Florida on 6 December.The gunman, Saudi
Air Force officer Mohammed Alshamrani, opened fire inside a classroom at the base, killing three people and injuring another 10.Among the
wounded were two sheriff's deputies, one of whom killed Alshamrani to put an end to his rampage.In an 18-minute video released after the
attack, al Rimi hailed Alshamrani as a "courageous knight" and a "hero".The response to the shooting exposed shortcomings in the screening
of foreign cadets in American military training programmes and led to more than a dozen Saudi students being sent home.The US ordered the
trainees to leave the country in January, saying had jihadist or anti-American sentiments on social media pages or had "contact with child
pornography" - including in internet chat rooms.
