The leader of al-Qaida's Yemeni wing has said the United States refused to exchange jailed Muslim cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman for a U.S. journalist who died in a failed rescue attempt in 2014, according to a recording posted on its media channel.

Abdel-Rahman, also known as "the blind sheikh," died in a North Carolina jail last month while serving a life sentence for conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York.

"The mujahideen sought to rescue the blind and crippled sheikh more than once, but the Americans did not heed demands for the release of this revered scholar," Qassim al-Reymi, who became leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in 2015 after his predecessor was killed in a U.S. bombing, said.