Qaeda Yemen member admits death of Osama bin Laden

ADEN—A member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Osama bin Laden’s network in Yemen, on Monday admitted to AFP that the chief of the extremist network had been killed, calling it a “catastrophe.”

“This news has been a catastrophe for us. At first we did not believe it, but we got in touch with our brothers in Pakistan who have confirmed it,” a member reached by telephone told an AFP correspondent.

In Bin Laden’s ancestral homeland of Yemen, Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda branches in January 2009 announced they had merged to form the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).