used his own brother as a suicide bomber in august of 2009 for the attempted assassination of a saudi prince and the actual leader of al-qaida in yemen is a longtime aid to osama bin laden and he's believed to be in the south of yemen. a u.s. official says that it's believed they have been apart for some time for operational security reasons. traveling to israel today the defense secretary who was recently the cia director said it was too early to write off the al-qaida affiliate. >> there is no question that al-qaida remains a threat, that there are individuals within al-qaida that are still there, that are still planning to try to attack the united states. >> reporter: a former senior intelligence official reminded me this morning that we had a similar strike with al-qaida in yemen back in 2002 and in a seven year period it was able to reconstitute itself and launch attacks against the united states. jenna: victory on one hand but