Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen killed two men accused of spying for the U.S. and hung their bodies off a bridge on Wednesday, a day after the jihadi group announced the death of its leader in an American drone strike.
The killings came a day after al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the Yemeni affiliate is known, said its leader, Nasir al-Wahishi, was killed in a U.S. drone strike last week.
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al-Wahishi was a close associate of Osama bin Laden in the years leading up to the events of 9/11. Sent to a Yemeni prison in the aftermath of the attacks, al-Wahishi escaped with a large group of fellow prisoners in 2006. He's since been credited with the merger of two groups that resulted in the formation of the AQAP, which has been responsible for several attacks and attempts, including the 2009 "underwear bomb" attempt onboard a U.S. plane and January's Charlie Hebdo attack.
Witnesses said al-Qaeda gunmen in the southern city of Mukalla read out charges before fatally shooting the two men, one of whom was accused of guiding the drone that killed commander Nasr al-Ansi and a media liaison known as Muhannad Ghalab.
Al-Qaeda captured Mukalla in April after Yemen's army splintered between allies and opponents of Shiite rebels known as Houthis. But the city has proven to be something of a death trap, with U.S. drone strikes in and around Mukalla killing not only al-Wahishi and al-Ansi, but also a senior religious ideologue, Ibrahim al-Rubaish.
In a report published late Wednesday, the Washington Post said the CIA didn't even know al-Wahisi would be killed in the strike.
ISIS claims responsibility for car bombings
Elsewhere in Yemen, ISIS has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly bombings in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa that have killed and wounded dozens of people. Al Jazeera reports that the four targets hit were three mosques and the political headquarters of Yemen's Houthi rebels.
Online statement: ISIL in Yemen claims responsibility for car bomb attacks in Yemeni capital - @Reuters— Hashem Said (@hash_said) June 17, 2015
In a statement posted online, the so-called Sunni Muslim Islamic State said, "The soldiers of the Islamic State in Yemen, in a wave of military operations as revenge for the Muslims against the Houthi apostates, (detonated) four car bombs near the centers of Houthi apostasy."
“@nationalyemen: Massive explosions hit 3 mosques in #Sanaa just few hours before #Ramadan starts pic.twitter.com/SnamwUOo9d” #Yemen— Phil Buck (@Phil_Buck) June 17, 2015
Another explosion earlier in the day destroyed the home of Abdel-Aziz Jubari, a politician participating in UN-led peace talks in Geneva that are aimed at bringing about a truce between Yemen's exiled General People's Congress government and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The UN has since announced that those talks, slated to end on Thursday, have been extended to Friday.
Additional reporting by Mashable.