Al Qaeda deputy leader killed in US bombing in Yemen

The deputy leader of al Qaeda, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, has been killed in a U.S. bombing in Yemen, the group and the White House said on Tuesday, removing the director of a string of attacks against the West and a man once seen as a successor to leader Ayman al-Zawahri. A close associate of Osama bin Laden in the years leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Wuhayshi, a Yemeni in his late 30s, was named by Zawahri as al Qaeda's effective number two in 2013. With a $10 million price on his head offered by U.S. authorities, Wuhayshi was also leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and his death potentially weakens the group, widely seen as the militant network's strongest branch.  He led the group as it plotted foiled bomb attacks against international airliners and claimed responsibility for the deadly shooting at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, calling it punishment for insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Senior AQAP member Khaled Batarfi said in a video statement posted online that Wuhayshi "passed away in an American strike which targeted him along with two of his mujahideen brothers, may God rest their souls," according to a news agency.