Nationality Egypt Occupation jihadist | Name Ibrahim Salih | |
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Other names Abu Ayman al-Masri
Ibrahim Muhammad Salih al-Banna Known for suspected of being an al Qaeda intelligence chief | ||
Ibrahim al-Banna is a citizen of Egypt who security officials suspect is a leader in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Security officials have repeatedly claimed to have killed him with missiles launched from unmanned aerial vehicles. An October 2011 claim had al-Banna killed, along with six other individuals, including some who were alleged to have been associated with AQAP and at least one (Anwar al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son and American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki) who was not. Al-Banna's death was proven false when he was added to the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program on October 19, 2014.
According to the Jamestown Foundation Yemeni security officials apprehended al-Banna in August 2010, and a Yemeni newspaper published transcripts of his interrogation in November 2010. The Jamestown Foundation published a profile of al-Banna based on those transcripts. a profile published by the Jamestown Foundation his full name was "Shaykh Ibrahim Muhammad Salih al-Banna" and his kunya was Abu Ayman al-Masri. They asserted that during his confession he acknowledged he was a member of Tala'al al-Fateh a branch of Egyptian Islamic Jihad as early as 1993, when members of the group went underground after it was suspected of being behind an attempt to assassinate Egyptian Prime Minister Atif Sidqi. Al-Banna escaped to Yemen where he was a member of a group led by brothers Ayman al-Zawahiri and Muhammad al-Zawahiri.
According to the Jamestown profile al-Banna acknowledged he had trained Abd al-Mun’im bin Izz al-Din al-Badawi in intelligence. Al-Badawi was to become head of intelligence for Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The Jamestown's profile challenged several aspects of the admissions in al-Banna's interrogation. They challenged the credibility of his claim that AQAP main source of weapons was a warlord in Sudan's wartorn Darfur region, because Darfur was a net importer of weapons, not an exporter. They challenged the credibility when he implicated Yemen's rebel Huthist, who are Shiite and al Qaeda are hardcore Sunnis.