Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi

Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi (October 1975 – 21 April 2015) was a senior leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) based in Yemen. Al-Ansi appeared in many of AQAP's propaganda videos, claiming the kidnap of US photojournalist Luke Somers and the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. On 7 May 2015, AQAP announced that al-Ansi was killed in a US drone strike.

Biography

In 1993, al-Ansi enrolled at the Iman University, which was headed by Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani, a longtime ally of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

In 1996 he tried to fight in Kashmir, but the Pakistani authorities prevented him from doing so. Instead, he went to Afghanistan where he met senior al-Qaeda officials, Abu Hafs al-Masri and Saif al-Adel. Along with other al-Qaeda members, al-Ansi tried to join the Civil war in Tajikistan but failed to reach the country "due to the heavy snow".