(CNN) Days after a raid on an al Qaeda compound in Yemen led to the first US military combat death under Donald Trump, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released an audio message taunting the new American President. 
 
 In an 11-minute recording, AQAP leader Qassim al-Rimi condemned the January 29 raid, saying, "The new fool of the White House received a painful slap across his face." 
 
 The message was released online Saturday and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group 
 
 In the recording, Rimi also claimed "dozens of Americans were killed and wounded," a number starkly at odds with the US account, which reported the death of one Navy SEAL, Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens. Three additional SEALs also were wounded. 
 
 Rimi acknowledged the deaths of 14 men and 11 women and children in the raid, a joint counterterrorism effort between the United States and United Arab Emirates. 
 
 A senior US military official told CNN on Monday that Rimi was a target of the operation. The recording was released after last week's raid. 
 
 Civilian deaths 
 
 Reportedly among the dead was the 8-year-old the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki , the late US-born cleric who directed attacks against the United States. Awlaki was killed in 2011. 
 
 Reprieve , a London-based nongovernmental organization, and a Sanaa-based human rights worker told CNN that at least 23 civilians were killed in the attack. 
 
 "When the Americans escaped, they dragged their killed and wounded, and they found no other alternative but to destroy their own planes so that it would not be proof of their scandal," Rimi said. 
 
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 The senior US military official told CNN on Monday that intelligence collection wasn't the only objective of the Yemen raid but that it had also targeted Rimi. 
 
 In the event Rimi wasn't there, the US military believed it would find intelligence that would help lead to him, the official said. 
 
 Green-lighting the mission was not dependent on al-Rimi being there, however, a senior US military official emphasized. 
 
 US Central Command, which oversees forces in the region, and the Pentagon are strongly denying al-Rimi was an objective of the raid. 
 
 On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said, "There was never any intention, hope, anticipation or plan that he would be part of this operation." 
 
 "It wasn't a high-value target mission," Col. John Thomas told CNN, referring to operations aimed at killing or capturing terrorist leaders. 
 
 Thomas added no hard intelligence indicated a "high possibility" Rimi was at the compound on the night of the raid, saying that Navy SEALs would have captured any leaders of the al Qaeda affiliate, including Rimi, as part of an intelligence-gathering operation. 
 
 "Anyone found on site would have been taken," Thomas said. 
 
 NBC first reported that Rimi was a target of the raid. 
 
 The chance to take out such a pivotal member of al Qaeda may explain the large allocation of resources used in the mission. 
 
 Raid missteps 
 
 Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters detected the SEAL team before it reached its objective, leading to an intense firefight. 
 
 Following news of the raid, the military had said the goal of the mission was to gather intelligence on the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. 
 
 On Friday, the Pentagon released clips from an al Qaeda training video seized during the raid but later pulled them because the video was nearly a decade old. 
 
 Government officials previously told CNN plans for the raid had been in the works for months and that Trump green-lighted the mission shortly after his inauguration. 
 
 The Pentagon said the battle resulted in the deaths of 14 al Qaeda fighters, including two AQAP leaders. 
 
 Many observers have considered al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula among the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, branch of al Qaeda since its formation in 2009. ||||| 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 some 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 United States' 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. 
 
 Qassim al-Rimi, the head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula AQAP video via Reutes 
 
 It's not clear whether al-Rimi was at the al Qaeda camp but escaped when SEAL Team 6 and United Arab Emirates commandos descended, whether he happened to be elsewhere, or whether he was even tipped off. 
 
 The White House, the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command had no comment on Monday, but issued a series of denials on Tuesday. 
 
 The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, disputed that al-Rimi was the target of the raid. 
 
 "I can tell you it’s not true," he said, adding that the military “never had any hope, intention or plan" of killing or capturing the AQAP leader in the operation. 
 
 A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for operations in the Middle East, said they had not expected to find al-Rimi at the encampment. 
 
 "There was no discussion of al-Rimi potentially being at that objective. We didn’t expect to see him there. We didn’t plan for him to be there, and this was not a raid that had anything to do with targeting that individual," Col. John Thomas said. 
 
 "The objective was site exploitation to find out more about how AQAP operates, functions, and how they communicate with each other.” 
 
 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said during a briefing that the raid was "highly successful." 
 
 "The goal of the raid was intelligence gathering and that's what we received and that’s what we got and that’s why we can deem it a success," he said. 
 
 A senior White House official, however, said that al-Rimi had been at the target site in the past and "the possibility of any capture drove the highest level deliberations." 
 
 U.S. Central Command — which received a visit from Trump on Monday — was not the only player involved. The Special Operations Command, which oversees global counter-terrorism military operations, and the CIA also had key roles in the mission, according to multiple military sources. The CIA declined comment. 
 
 "These types of missions have many tracks and are part of many worlds outside of the Pentagon," the senior White House official said. "This was a high-risk mission demanding the president's approval." ||||| SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The leader of al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen has released an audio recording in which he describes President Donald Trump as the "White House's new fool" and says a recent U.S. raid against the group killed 25 people, including 11 women and children. 
 
 Addressing his followers in the recording, which emerged late Saturday, Qassim al-Rimi says: "The White House's new fool has received a painful blow at your hands in his first outing on your land." 
 
 Al-Rimi identifies all 25 purported victims of the Jan. 29 raid and claims that scores of U.S. soldiers were killed or wounded. 
 
 The recording's authenticity could not be immediately verified, but the voice was similar to that of previous recordings by al-Rimi. 
 
 The U.S. military says a Navy SEAL was killed in the raid.
– Military officials who've been trying to justify a Jan. 29 raid that killed a Navy SEAL in Yemen now say the goal was to capture al-Qaeda leader Qassim al-Rimi, who they believe escaped unscathed. They believe this because al-Rimi—considered the third most dangerous terrorist in the world, per NBC News—can be heard taunting President Trump in an 11-minute audio recording released over the weekend, which officials believe is authentic. "The new fool of the White House received a painful slap across his face," CNN quotes al-Rimi as saying. Al-Rimi also claims 25 people died in the raid, noting "dozens of Americans were killed and wounded," per the AP. The US military has said one Navy SEAL died and three others were wounded. A White House official tells NBC that Trump approved the raid after Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford told him al-Rimi's capture would be a "game changer." However, an official tells CNN that al-Rimi was not essential to the mission, which officials believed would lead to him one way or another. Though al-Rimi wasn't captured—it isn't clear if he was at the site—military officials have said the mission was "successful." Fourteen al-Qaeda fighters were killed and "al-Qaeda was disrupted, at least in terms of that cell," says a former national security adviser under former President George W. Bush. "They understand that the US is willing to lean forward, and perhaps they're being deterred or disrupted in their activities." (The military initially claimed it nabbed a decade-old video.)