Yemen’s foremost Al Qaeda researcher says recent U.S. drone strikes have failed to kill senior leaders of the organization, and he dismisses claims that a plot to bomb a Canadian-owned oil facility was foiled by Yemeni authorities.

Abdulrazzaq al-Jamal, a journalist and researcher who has been given exclusive access to the terrorist group’s Yemen branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), said the series of drone strikes in the past 12 days have killed 32 people, including low-level foot soldiers and civilians.

“Among those killed are the ones who are largely . . . on the periphery of the organization,” Jamal said from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in a wide-ranging phone interview with the Toronto Star on Thursday.

It is not uncommon to have conflicting reports about those killed in drone attacks — AQAP leaders have been reported dead, only to release statements weeks later.

The Associated Press reported that 34 suspected Al Qaeda militants were killed in recent strikes, including 12 deaths in three strikes on Thursday. Reuters put Thursday’s death toll at eight, for a two-week total of 25 suspected militants.

The contradictory claims add to confusion about why the U.S. has dramatically increased its drone strikes in Yemen, and what prompted it to issue a worldwide travel warning last Friday and keep 19 embassies throughout Africa and the Middle East closed this week.

Jamal says he is skeptical of many of the recent reports on the matter, including a claim that the unprecedented security measures are due to an intercepted direct communication between AQAP leader Nasser al-Wahishi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Al Qaeda’s leader in 2011 after Osama bin Laden was killed. U.S. officials have stated that Wahishi was recently appointed to Al Qaeda’s No. 2 position.

“I did not hear any of this through the usual channels,” Jamal said. But he noted that “whether Wahishi is No. 2 or 10 or 20, it’s irrelevant. Al Qaeda’s activities continue as usual.” In addition, AQAP operates independently and would not need direction from Zawahiri, he said.

Jamal is considered among journalists to have the best access to AQAP’s inner circle, although he said he has not personally met Wahishi or the group’s elusive bomb-maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri.

In 2011, Jamal spent weeks with AQAP members when the group had control of the town of Zinjibar, leading some critics to accuse him of writing sympathetic portrayals of the organization. Jamal also interviewed a top Al Qaeda leader, Fahd al-Quso, before he was killed in a drone strike in Yemen last year. Quso was the alleged planner of the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 American sailors.

Two of Thursday’s drone strikes reportedly hit Yemen’s eastern province of Hadramaut, where Yemeni authorities claimed AQAP was poised to take over the provincial capital Mukalla, a key sea port, and attack the Canadian-owned Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal nearby.

“It’s not true at all,” Jamal said. “Al Qaeda does not attack places of public interest.” He accused the Yemeni government of “spreading this talk to justify the drone attacks by the U.S.”

Jamal is not the only one doubting claims by Yemeni government officials.

“Along with many, I’m skeptical of the reports that AQAP was about to seize ports in Yemen,” Gregory Johnsen, a Princeton scholar and expert on Yemen, wrote on Twitter Wednesday.

“I second that,” responded Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, contradicting the claims of the government he represents.

Earlier in the day Albasha wrote: “For the record: AQAP doesn’t have the manpower nor the capabilities to capture a city the size of Mukalla.”

Foreign-owned oil facilities and Western embassies have always been considered “legitimate” targets by AQAP, Jamal said, but he questioned whether the threat was high enough now to prompt the current terror alert.

The U.S., Britain and other European governments evacuated non-essential personnel from Yemen earlier this week and the U.S. embassies in the region were shut due to an unspecified threat “emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.” Some U.S. officials have warned that it’s the greatest risk since the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I don’t think Al Qaeda will do anything in the coming weeks because their military activities had been reduced in Sanaa,” Jamal said. “A military operation would distract them from expanding into other areas, where it wants to increase its presence.”

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So what is behind the threat?

“Yemenis are asking the very same question and they can’t find an answer,” Jamal said. “Most of them don’t think it has anything to do with Al Qaeda,” he said, echoing a popular theory in Sanaa that the U.S. has evacuated its citizens in advance of a planned military operation.

He says he has watched anti-U.S. sentiment spike in recent days — especially in light of the manned P-3 surveillance aircraft that is buzzing over the capital, which is commonly mistaken for an armed drone.

“Yemeni people live in fear that the drones will attack at any time,” he said. “We in Sanaa cannot sleep because of the sound of the drones. Yemenis believe that the drones are the ones who are ruling over Yemen . . . so that explains why there is resentment toward American and Western policies in general.”

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