ISIS leader of Yemen branch captured in raid by Yemeni and Saudi Arabian special forces.

File photo of Yemeni special forces. AFP.

The leader of ISIS's Yemen branch has been captured in a raid by Yemeni and Saudi Arabian special forces. AFP. Abu Osama al-Muhajir was captured along with the chief financial officer in a raid earlier this month. It is unclear exactly when and where the raid occurred. Weapons, ammo, laptops and currency were also taken in the raid. ISIS and other terror groups, most notably al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have used the ongoing civil war between the Saudi backed Yemeni government and the Iranian backed Shia Houthi rebels. 

My Comment:

This is a major blow to ISIS in Yemen. Yemen was functioning as one of their back up countries after their defeat in Syria and Iraq. They have been using the chaos there to avoid the kind of attacks they faced in other countries. But unfortunately for them pretty much every other faction there hates them, including AQAP. 

Losing both their leader and chief financial officer is a huge disaster for ISIS. Leadership is very important and hard to replace. And capturing people so far up in the organization will probably result in intelligence which can be used to launch further raids against ISIS. It's yet another body blow to a terror group that is already on it's heels. 

However, ISIS in Yemen has never been as popular or powerful as many of their other affiliates. AQAP is the main game in town and ISIS hasn't been able to make the kind of gains they have made in Egypt and Afghanistan. Though they have taken advantage of the chaos, they have been unable to make much ground or launch many terror attacks. 

The Saudis obviously helped with this raid and may have been a major reason why it succeeded. I also suspect that the United States likely helped the operation as well, in a non combat role. Not to insult the Yemeni special forces but I am not sure they could have pulled this off on their own.

I do think that ISIS will continue to have a foothold in Yemen. With the war raging between the government and the Houthis (and let's be honest here, it's really a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran) ISIS will have a chance to continue being a threat. Without a united front against them they have a chance to recover from this raid.  

ISIS as a whole though is barely hanging on. They have lost their strongholds in Syria and Iraq and are not the force they once were in Libya. They are only really strong Egypt and Afghanistan and even there they are under constant pressure. And other than the very notable Easter attack in Sri Lanka, they haven't pulled off a major terror attack in a long time. This is yet another setback in a group that is rapidly losing relevance.