In accordance with paragraph 13 of resolution 1822 (2008) and subsequent related resolutions, the ISIL (Da'esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee makes accessible a narrative summary of reasons for the listing for individuals, groups, undertakings and entities included in the ISIL (Da'esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List.
Qasim Mohamed Mahdi al-Rimi was listed on 11 May 2010 pursuant to paragraph 2 of resolution 1904 (2009) as being associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of ”, “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel to”, “ recruiting for”, and “otherwise supporting acts or activities of ” Al-Qaida (QDe.004) and Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) (QDe.129).
Qasim Mohamed Mahdi al-Rimi is Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) (QDe.129) senior leader for terrorist operations. He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2005 after being convicted in Yemen of plotting to assassinate the United States Ambassador to Yemen. He, along with AQAP's current emir, Nasir ‘abd-al-Karim ‘Abdullah al-Wahishi (deceased), escaped from prison in Yemen in 2006.
Since his escape, Al-Rimi has played a key role in reviving the regional node of Al-Qaida (QDe.004). In 2007, he and Al-Wahishi (deceased) announced the emergence of Al-Qaida in Yemen (AQAP’s predecessor) and carried out a July 2007 attack on a convoy of Spanish tourists in Mareb province, Yemen that killed nine people.
Since its creation, AQAP has claimed responsibility for the March 2009 suicide bombings that killed four Korean tourists in Yemen, and is reportedly responsible for the kidnapping of nine foreigners in Yemen, and the execution of three of them, in June 2009. Additionally, AQAP has claimed responsibility for the 25 December 2009 attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight traveling between Amsterdam and Detroit by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Al-Rimi has played a key operational role and held positions of authority in AQAP and formerly Al-Qaida in Yemen, both of which have publicly claimed responsibility for planning and carrying out assassinations, suicide bombings, and attacks against critical infrastructure with targets including the United States Embassy in Sanaa, tourists, aid workers, Yemeni counterterrorism officials, and oil facilities. Al-Rimi has planned and directed such acts of terrorism. Al-Rimi has also played an important role in recruiting the current generation of militants making up the Yemen-based AQAP.
As of February 2020, Al-Rimi was reportedly killed in a counterterrorism operation in Yemen.