(NBC News) — The Navy SEAL raid in Yemen last week had a secret objective — the head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who survived and is now taunting President Donald Trump in an audio message.
Military and intelligence officials told NBC News the goal of the massive operation was to capture or kill Qassim al-Rimi, considered the third most dangerous terrorist in the world and a master recruiter.
But while one SEAL, 14 al Qaeda fighters and civilians including an 8-year-old girl were killed during a firefight, al-Rimi is still alive and in Yemen, multiple military officials said.
On Sunday, al-Rimi — who landed on the U.S. most-wanted terrorist list after taking over al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate in 2015 — released an audio recording that military sources said is authentic.
“The fool of the White House got slapped at the beginning of his road in your lands,” he said in an apparent reference to the Jan. 29 raid.
It’s not clear if al-Rimi was at the al Qaeda camp but escaped when SEAL Team 6 and Emirati commandos descended, if he happened to be elsewhere, or even if he was tipped off.
The White House — which had declared the raid “a successful operation by all standards” — had no comment Monday on his escape from death. The Pentagon also declined to comment.
Juan Zarate, a national security adviser in the Bush administration and an NBC News analyst, said that even though the raid did not neutralize al-Rimi, it could still yield smaller victories.
“Certainly if the goal is to capture the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, that didn’t happen. It wasn’t successful in that regard,” he said.
“On the other hand, a number of al Qaeda leaders were killed, and al Qaeda was disrupted, at least in terms of that cell. They understand that the U.S. is willing to lean forward and perhaps they’re being deterred or disrupted in their activities.
“And we may have collected incredibly valuable intelligence that will lead to further disruptions and further counterterrorism activities down the road.”
Military officials told NBC News that it was the prospect of taking out al-Rimi that convinced the U.S. chain of command that the mission was worth the risk.
Preparation spanned two administrations. After the election, the Pentagon presented the Obama team with a broad plan to accelerate U.S. counter-terrorism operations in Yemen, and the Obama administration referred the proposal to the incoming Trump team.
After two months of military preparation increasingly focused on the opportunity to capture al-Rimi, Trump was told by Defense Secretary James Mattis and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that his capture would be a “game changer,” according to a senior White House official with direct knowledge of the discussions.
The so-called “package” for the mission was larger than any counterterrorism strike since the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden: two dozen SEALs, backed up by 30 to 40 other Americans on the ground and in the air. A half-dozen Yemeni soldiers and a dozen commandos from the United Arabs Emirates who had developed the intelligence leading to the target were also involved, and a Marine Corps Quick Reaction Force was waiting off shore, multiple officials say.
A senior U.S. intelligence official has told NBC News that “almost everything went wrong” once the raid got underway. Occupants of the target house were alerted by something — possibly a barking dog, a drone crash or a walkie-talkie chatter, U.S. officials said.
The raiding force on the ground came under fire and fighting erupted around houses where women and children were staying, with some armed women firing on the U.S. and Emirati forces, senior military official told NBC News.
Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens of SEAL Team 6 was mortally wounded, and an MV-22 Osprey called in as backup had a hard landing and was rendered useless. A pair of Harrier jets and a pair of helicopter gunships arrived and attacked the encampment and destroyed the Osprey, the military official said.
The Pentagon later acknowledged that civilians were killed, possibly including children. The dead included the 8-year-old Nawr al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen through her father American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a 2011 airstrike in Yemen.
After the raid, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said it had been “a successful operation by all standards” and the Pentagon released a statement that said U.S. forces had captured “materials and information that is yielding valuable intelligence.”
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