Story highlights
A military raid went after a top al Qaeda boss, a source told CNN
The raid led to the first combat death under President Donald Trump
A senior US military official told CNN Monday that intelligence collection wasn’t the only objective of the recent military raid in Yemen but the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had also been targeted.
If the leader, Qassim al-Rimi, wasn’t there, the US military believed it would find intelligence that would help lead to him, the official said, though the official cautioned that the mission was not greenlit based on whether it was thought Al-Rimi would be at the site.
US Central Command, which oversees forces in the region, and the Pentagon are strongly denying al-Rimi was an objective of the raid just over a week ago.
On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said, “There was never any intention, hope, anticipation or plan that he would be part of this operation.”
“It wasn’t a high-value target mission,” Col. John Thomas told CNN on Monday, referring to operations aimed at killing or capturing terrorist leaders.
Thomas added that there was no hard intelligence indicating a “high possibility” al-Rimi was at the compound on the night of the raid, saying that the Navy SEALs would have captured AQAP leaders, including al-Rimi, as part of the intelligence-gathering operation.
“Anyone found on site would have been taken,” Thomas said.
A senior US military official, however, told CNN that al-Rimi was part of the decision making to plan the operation.
Al-Rimi was not captured or killed and has since released an audio message mentioning the raid and taunting President Donald Trump.
US Special Operations forces have been searching for Al-Rimi in Yemen for years and the US has knowledge of locations where he and other AQAP leaders are suspected to travel and operate. Al-Rimi, however, has continued to elude detection.
NBC first reported that Rimi was a target of the raid.
The chance to take out such a pivotal member of al Qaeda may explain the large allocation of resources used in the mission.
The raid led to the first US combat death since Trump took office. The mission combined US Navy SEALs with significant air support, as well as support from UAE special forces. In addition to the death of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, several SEALs were injured.
An 8-year-old girl, who was the daughter of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who directed attacks against the US, was killed in the raid; al-Awlaki was killed in 2011. The London-based NGO Reprieve and a Sanaa-based human rights worker told CNN that at least 23 civilians were killed in the attack.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters detected the SEAL team before it reached its objective, leading to an intense firefight.
Following news of the raid, the military had said the goal of the mission was to gather intelligence on the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.
On Friday, the Pentagon released clips from an al Qaeda training video seized during the raid but later pulled them because the video was nearly a decade old.
Government officials previously told CNN plans for the raid had been in the works for months and that Trump green-lighted the mission shortly after his inauguration.
The Pentagon said the battle resulted in the deaths of 14 al Qaeda fighters, including two AQAP leaders.
Many observers have considered al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula among the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, branch of al Qaeda since its formation in 2009.
Rimi reportedly became its leader following a 2015 drone strike that killed Nasir al-Wuhayshi.
CNN’s Ryan Browne contributed to this report.