A new video from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula appears to undercut the Obama administration's claim that Anwar al-Awlaki was the "head of external operations" for AQAP. The 39-minute video was posted to the internet on Saturday, just two days before the Second Circuit Court released a legal memo justifying Awlaki's killing by a CIA drone in September 2011.

Despite its release date, the video doesn't appear to be an attempt to pre-empt the Obama administration's memo. In fact, the video has little to do with Anwar al-Awlaki. Instead it focuses on the life of Said al-Shihri, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who rose to become the deputy commander in AQAP before dying as a result of wounds suffered in a U.S. drone strike in late 2012.

The video says that it was Shihri — not Awlaki — who was "responsible for external operations against America." For years, the Obama administration has argued the opposite, claiming that Awlaki was directing AQAP's efforts against the U.S., including the failed underwear bomb on an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

On the day Awlaki was killed, Obama called him "the leader of external operations for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" and said he "directed" the 2009 attack. The video appears to refute both claims, giving credit to Shihri, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee.

Halfway through the video there is a clip of AQAP leader Nasir al-Wihayshi embracing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber in the Christmas Day attack, and whispering in his ear as a narrator reads that the attack was conducted "under the direct supervision of (Shihri) and a number of his brothers in the section in charge of external operations."