Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula officially denied “in whole” a United Nations report that said the group’s leader, Khalid Batarfi, had been arrested in an October raid in which his deputy, Saad Atef al Awlaki, had been killed.

The report, which did not included further details about arrest or imprisonment, had been included in a report to the UN Security Council from a monitoring team tracking terror groups. “In addition to leadership losses, AQAP is suffering an erosion of its ranks caused by dissensions and desertions, led primarily by one of Batarfi’s ex-lieutenants, Abu Omar al-Nahdi,” the report also said.

AQAP issued a statement Thursday calling the news “a false and deceptive report and an outright lie to the public.”

Read more: Homeland Security Today