*** I met many legitimate students just trying to learn Arabic from Syria and Yemen. Those idiots who abuse such an honour (not suggesting that is the case here) make it difficult for students to learn the beautiful language and to access the sources of Islam as they deserve to be.
The Bin Laden worldview of Jihad Jihad Jihad is hindering people from coming to know Allah - which is a crime against Your Lord. MS ***
FROM: http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=366934&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17
Sanaa to deport woman linked to Qaeda: Australia
Yemen is to deport an Australian woman arrested last month along with her two young children, Canberra said yesterday. Shylogh Giddens, a convert to Islam who was detained last month over suspected Al Qaeda links, according to her lawyer, will return to Australia this week with her children aged five and seven. “It’s been agreed between Australia and Yemen that together with her children she will be deported from Yemen by the end of this week and she will return to Australia,” Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said. “In the meantime she continues to receive consular support from Australian officers who have gone to the Yemen.”
Showing posts with label terrorism yemen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism yemen. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
YEMEN AL QAIDA URGES KIDNAPPING SUADI ROYALS
*** Take a read of the post regarding the increasing participation of women. The groups in question will adapt their tactics, while some in the West are preoccupied with the supposed rigidity of Islamic practices by extremists. Question everything - all assumptions must at least entertain the possibility of its opposite being true at some point. MS ***
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100603/world/ml_yemen_al_qaida
CAIRO - A senior member of an al-Qaida offshoot in Yemen called on supporters in an audio recording posted Thursday to kidnap Christians and members of the Saudi royal family to avenge the arrest of a female preacher linked to the terror group.
In a 17-minute message, the deputy chief of al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, Said al-Shihri, said such hostages could be used as a bargaining chip to secure the release of the terror group's supporters currently held in jails across the region.
But in a rare nod to al-Qaida's female supporters, al-Shihri focused on one woman detainee, the Saudi Haila al-Kassir, appearing to indicate her arrest was a significant loss for the terror group.
Al-Shihri did not say when al-Kassir was captured. However, Saudi authorities in March announced the arrest of more than 100 suspected al-Qaida militants — including one woman — who were allegedly planning attacks on oil installations in the kingdom.
Anwar Eshki, the head of the Saudi Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, said the fact that al-Shihri mentioned al-Kassir indicates her arrest dealt a blow to the group.
"Other women were arrested before as supporters or preachers on an individual basis for the group and have gone through rehabilitation and were released," Eshki said. "This woman appears to have been involved in organized fund raising. This would be unusual."
Saudi officials were not immediately available for comment. But the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh and the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television quoted officials as saying al-Kassir, who is also known as Um al-Rabab, was arrested while carrying $650,000.
Women have assumed an increasingly active role in al-Qaida, which would appear to run contrary to the group's fundamentalist view that women should focus primarily on caring for the home and supporting fighters.
In recent years, most notably in Iraq, female suicide bombers have carried out attacks, something experts interpreted as a sign of increasing desperation by the militant group to evade security crackdowns.
In an article published in an al-Qaida online newsletter last month, al-Shihri's wife, a prominent preacher wanted by Saudi authorities and believed to be hiding with him in Yemen, also lamented al-Kassir's arrest and urged other Saudi women who support al-Qaida to escape to Yemen for protection.
A militant website that first reported al-Kassir's arrest described her as a 45-year old preacher who was last married to an al-Qaida leader killed in Saudi Arabia during a government crackdown on the group in 2004. The website said al-Kassir was wanted by Saudi authorities apparently because of her links to al-Shihri's wife.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was formed a year ago, when Yemen and Saudi militant groups merged.
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100603/world/ml_yemen_al_qaida
CAIRO - A senior member of an al-Qaida offshoot in Yemen called on supporters in an audio recording posted Thursday to kidnap Christians and members of the Saudi royal family to avenge the arrest of a female preacher linked to the terror group.
In a 17-minute message, the deputy chief of al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, Said al-Shihri, said such hostages could be used as a bargaining chip to secure the release of the terror group's supporters currently held in jails across the region.
But in a rare nod to al-Qaida's female supporters, al-Shihri focused on one woman detainee, the Saudi Haila al-Kassir, appearing to indicate her arrest was a significant loss for the terror group.
Al-Shihri did not say when al-Kassir was captured. However, Saudi authorities in March announced the arrest of more than 100 suspected al-Qaida militants — including one woman — who were allegedly planning attacks on oil installations in the kingdom.
Anwar Eshki, the head of the Saudi Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, said the fact that al-Shihri mentioned al-Kassir indicates her arrest dealt a blow to the group.
"Other women were arrested before as supporters or preachers on an individual basis for the group and have gone through rehabilitation and were released," Eshki said. "This woman appears to have been involved in organized fund raising. This would be unusual."
Saudi officials were not immediately available for comment. But the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh and the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television quoted officials as saying al-Kassir, who is also known as Um al-Rabab, was arrested while carrying $650,000.
Women have assumed an increasingly active role in al-Qaida, which would appear to run contrary to the group's fundamentalist view that women should focus primarily on caring for the home and supporting fighters.
In recent years, most notably in Iraq, female suicide bombers have carried out attacks, something experts interpreted as a sign of increasing desperation by the militant group to evade security crackdowns.
In an article published in an al-Qaida online newsletter last month, al-Shihri's wife, a prominent preacher wanted by Saudi authorities and believed to be hiding with him in Yemen, also lamented al-Kassir's arrest and urged other Saudi women who support al-Qaida to escape to Yemen for protection.
A militant website that first reported al-Kassir's arrest described her as a 45-year old preacher who was last married to an al-Qaida leader killed in Saudi Arabia during a government crackdown on the group in 2004. The website said al-Kassir was wanted by Saudi authorities apparently because of her links to al-Shihri's wife.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was formed a year ago, when Yemen and Saudi militant groups merged.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
SOMALI REFUGEES TO YEMEN & TERRORISM
*** When people are made to feel they are not welcome in society, they become marginalized and are easy pickings for those who peddle in anger, desperation and rage. We are dismantling human society through our negligence. MS ***
FROM: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/Al-Qaeda-reaps-recruits-from-Somali-refugees-in-Yemen-94782249.html
Al Qaeda reaps recruits from Somali refugees in Yemen
By: Sara A. Carter
National Security Correspondent
May 25, 2010
Al Qaeda's robust terror organization in Yemen is recruiting from a pool of hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees who have fled war in their homeland, according to U.S. and Yemeni intelligence officials.
Approximately 700,000 Somali refugees have made Yemen their home, and that population is expected to continue to grow in the face of the collapse of the East African nation, Yemeni and intelligence officials told The Washington Examiner. A significant number of those Somali refugees are believed to be members of Al-Shabaab Mujahideen, an Islamist insurgency group with strong ties to al Qaeda.
Two American tourists were kidnapped by gunmen in Yemen Monday, and local officials said it was likely the group holding them had ties to al Qaeda. The abduction highlighted the growing danger of Islamic extremists in Yemen, experts said.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who was an adviser to President Obama on Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, said the Somali refugee crisis poses significant national security concerns for the United States, and a golden opportunity for al Qaeda.
Riedel, who visited the Gulf of Aden last winter, said that although Somali refugees hope that Yemen will be their first stop to a wealthier country, "most never get beyond Yemen. Among them are dozens of young extremists who become recruits for [al Qaeda Arabian Penninsula]."
Al Qaeda in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged into a single organization in early 2009, intelligence officials said. It calls itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and is based in Yemen. A number of Somali militants enter Yemen "to train with AQAP," a U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed.
American born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has emerged as a key player in al Qaeda's efforts to raise important new infrastructures in countries like Yemen which are outside the reach of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and where lawlessness and poverty prevail.
Al-Awalki, an American of Yemeni decent, is believed to be hiding in Yemen. U.S. intelligence officials say he is the new face of al Qaeda and recruits from the large number of Somali refugees entering that nation.
Al-Awlaki is the only American on the CIA's list of important targets to apprehend or kill. On Monday, in a video released by al Qaeda, al-Awalki, dressed in Yemeni traditional tribal clothing, called on believers to kill American soldiers and civilians.
Christopher Boucek, a Yemen specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a recently published report, "There are increasing indications that al Qaeda is regrouping in Yemen and preparing to strike at Western and other targets."
A retired senior military official with direct knowledge of al Qaeda in Yemen said that as al Qaeda's recruiting pool grows, Western targets will become more vulnerable.
He said Somali refugees are just one group of potential recruits.
"With the Somali crisis in Yemen growing we have to be mindful of how these various groups, like Somalia's Al-Shabaab, are connecting, recruiting and developing ties to one another," the official said.
Another military official warned that the global links between the groups in Yemen pose a "significant danger to our own national security because the next attack in the U.S. may not come from someone we suspect but from a recruit born right here or someone else, like a Somali refugee," he said.
In April, The Examiner reported that 23 Somalis who entered Mexico illegally earlier in the year were believed headed for the U.S. after being released by Mexican authorities. Of the 23 Somalis, several were directly connected to Al-Shabaab, according to the law enforcement documents.
Intelligence suggested some were attempting to cross the southern border into the U.S. Intelligence officials say they have not been located.
Al Qaeda's ties with Somali refugees also have implications for the oil-rich Middle East.
Riedel warned that as al Qaeda solidifies its safe havens in Yemen and Somalia, it will become a growing danger to the shipping lanes in the world's most important waterways.
"Al Qaeda's leadership in Yemen has very ambitious plans to develop cooperation [with] the Shabab in Somalia so that al Qaeda can influence the control of the shipping lanes in the Bab al Mandab strait that separates Asia from Africa and which is the world's energy choke point," he said.
FROM: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/Al-Qaeda-reaps-recruits-from-Somali-refugees-in-Yemen-94782249.html
Al Qaeda reaps recruits from Somali refugees in Yemen
By: Sara A. Carter
National Security Correspondent
May 25, 2010
Al Qaeda's robust terror organization in Yemen is recruiting from a pool of hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees who have fled war in their homeland, according to U.S. and Yemeni intelligence officials.
Approximately 700,000 Somali refugees have made Yemen their home, and that population is expected to continue to grow in the face of the collapse of the East African nation, Yemeni and intelligence officials told The Washington Examiner. A significant number of those Somali refugees are believed to be members of Al-Shabaab Mujahideen, an Islamist insurgency group with strong ties to al Qaeda.
Two American tourists were kidnapped by gunmen in Yemen Monday, and local officials said it was likely the group holding them had ties to al Qaeda. The abduction highlighted the growing danger of Islamic extremists in Yemen, experts said.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who was an adviser to President Obama on Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, said the Somali refugee crisis poses significant national security concerns for the United States, and a golden opportunity for al Qaeda.
Riedel, who visited the Gulf of Aden last winter, said that although Somali refugees hope that Yemen will be their first stop to a wealthier country, "most never get beyond Yemen. Among them are dozens of young extremists who become recruits for [al Qaeda Arabian Penninsula]."
Al Qaeda in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged into a single organization in early 2009, intelligence officials said. It calls itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and is based in Yemen. A number of Somali militants enter Yemen "to train with AQAP," a U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed.
American born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has emerged as a key player in al Qaeda's efforts to raise important new infrastructures in countries like Yemen which are outside the reach of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and where lawlessness and poverty prevail.
Al-Awalki, an American of Yemeni decent, is believed to be hiding in Yemen. U.S. intelligence officials say he is the new face of al Qaeda and recruits from the large number of Somali refugees entering that nation.
Al-Awlaki is the only American on the CIA's list of important targets to apprehend or kill. On Monday, in a video released by al Qaeda, al-Awalki, dressed in Yemeni traditional tribal clothing, called on believers to kill American soldiers and civilians.
Christopher Boucek, a Yemen specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a recently published report, "There are increasing indications that al Qaeda is regrouping in Yemen and preparing to strike at Western and other targets."
A retired senior military official with direct knowledge of al Qaeda in Yemen said that as al Qaeda's recruiting pool grows, Western targets will become more vulnerable.
He said Somali refugees are just one group of potential recruits.
"With the Somali crisis in Yemen growing we have to be mindful of how these various groups, like Somalia's Al-Shabaab, are connecting, recruiting and developing ties to one another," the official said.
Another military official warned that the global links between the groups in Yemen pose a "significant danger to our own national security because the next attack in the U.S. may not come from someone we suspect but from a recruit born right here or someone else, like a Somali refugee," he said.
In April, The Examiner reported that 23 Somalis who entered Mexico illegally earlier in the year were believed headed for the U.S. after being released by Mexican authorities. Of the 23 Somalis, several were directly connected to Al-Shabaab, according to the law enforcement documents.
Intelligence suggested some were attempting to cross the southern border into the U.S. Intelligence officials say they have not been located.
Al Qaeda's ties with Somali refugees also have implications for the oil-rich Middle East.
Riedel warned that as al Qaeda solidifies its safe havens in Yemen and Somalia, it will become a growing danger to the shipping lanes in the world's most important waterways.
"Al Qaeda's leadership in Yemen has very ambitious plans to develop cooperation [with] the Shabab in Somalia so that al Qaeda can influence the control of the shipping lanes in the Bab al Mandab strait that separates Asia from Africa and which is the world's energy choke point," he said.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
RADICALIZATION IN PRISON : CONVERTS OFF TO YEMEN ?
FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/world/middleeast/20terror.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
WASHINGTON — Some American former convicts who converted to Islam in prison have moved to Yemen and a few may have joined extremist groups there, according to a new Senate report.
The report, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that as many as 36 American Muslims who were prisoners have moved to Yemen in recent months, ostensibly to study Arabic, and that several of them have “dropped off the radar” and may have connected to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The report warns that Americans recruited in Yemen or Somalia may pose a particular threat, since they can operate freely inside the United States.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, though, said they thought the report’s claim about former prisoners was exaggerated. A law enforcement official confirmed that some of them had traveled to Yemen — perhaps one or two dozen over the past several years — intending to study Arabic or Islam. The official said the former convicts did not appear to be part of any organized recruitment effort, however, and few are known to have connections with extremists.
Yemen has come under increased scrutiny from American counterterrorism agencies since November, after it emerged that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., had exchanged e-mail messages with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric in hiding in Yemen. The focus intensified after the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25 by a Nigerian man who allegedly was trained and supplied with explosives in Yemen.
The Senate report, written by the committee’s Democratic staff, said the government was “on heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports and the related challenges involved in detecting and stopping homegrown operatives.”
With the United States putting Al Qaeda under intense pressure in Pakistan, some fighters have moved to join militant groups in Yemen and Somalia, as well as in North Africa and Southeast Asia, the report said. “These groups may have only an informal connection with Al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan, but they often share common goals,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, wrote in a letter accompanying the report.
The report notes that members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, appeared at an antigovernment rally in southern Yemen last month. In video later shown on Al Jazeera television, a militant told the crowd that the group’s war was with the United States, not the Yemeni Army.
In addition to the American former prisoners in Yemen, the report said there were about 10 other Americans not of Yemeni ancestry who have also moved there, married Yemeni women and adopted a radical form of Islam. None in that group, however, appear to have sought terrorist training, the report said.
In nearby Somalia, the Senate report recounted, news reports told of Somali-Americans traveling to join a militant group, the Shabab. It also described Americans caught entering Somalia from Djibouti.
An immigration official in Djibouti said that he had recently turned away two Somali-Americans trying to cross into Somalia, because he thought they might be trying to link up with the Shabab. Two others were arrested and prosecuted in Djibouti for entering illegally.
The possibility that American prisons could become an incubator for radical Islam has long been raised by experts on terrorism, and a few Muslim prison chaplains in United States prisons have been accused of having extremist views. To date, only a handful of alleged terrorist plots, none of them successful, have involved American Muslims who are former prisoners.
Three American Muslims were convicted for a 2005 plot to attack Jewish institutions and military bases around Los Angeles that was said to have been concocted inside New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento. Michael Finton, who converted to Islam while imprisoned in Illinois from 1999 to 2005, was charged last year with trying to blow up the federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill.
And four former New York state prisoners, at least two of whom converted to Islam in prison, were accused last year of plotting to attack synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes.
A. J. Sabree, a corrections official in Georgia and a Muslim, who worked for years as a prison chaplain, said he had never heard of Muslim former prisoners moving to Yemen. Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the New York State prison system, which employs about 40 imams to counsel inmates, said officials there were not aware of the phenomenon.
Mr. Kriss cautioned against equating conversion in prison to Islam, which is relatively common, to radicalization.
“We do not have any evidence of anything resembling widespread terrorist-inspired radicalization or recruiting,” he said. “But we recognize the potential and therefore remain vigilant in guarding against it.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Some American former convicts who converted to Islam in prison have moved to Yemen and a few may have joined extremist groups there, according to a new Senate report.
The report, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that as many as 36 American Muslims who were prisoners have moved to Yemen in recent months, ostensibly to study Arabic, and that several of them have “dropped off the radar” and may have connected to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The report warns that Americans recruited in Yemen or Somalia may pose a particular threat, since they can operate freely inside the United States.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, though, said they thought the report’s claim about former prisoners was exaggerated. A law enforcement official confirmed that some of them had traveled to Yemen — perhaps one or two dozen over the past several years — intending to study Arabic or Islam. The official said the former convicts did not appear to be part of any organized recruitment effort, however, and few are known to have connections with extremists.
Yemen has come under increased scrutiny from American counterterrorism agencies since November, after it emerged that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., had exchanged e-mail messages with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric in hiding in Yemen. The focus intensified after the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25 by a Nigerian man who allegedly was trained and supplied with explosives in Yemen.
The Senate report, written by the committee’s Democratic staff, said the government was “on heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports and the related challenges involved in detecting and stopping homegrown operatives.”
With the United States putting Al Qaeda under intense pressure in Pakistan, some fighters have moved to join militant groups in Yemen and Somalia, as well as in North Africa and Southeast Asia, the report said. “These groups may have only an informal connection with Al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan, but they often share common goals,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, wrote in a letter accompanying the report.
The report notes that members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, appeared at an antigovernment rally in southern Yemen last month. In video later shown on Al Jazeera television, a militant told the crowd that the group’s war was with the United States, not the Yemeni Army.
In addition to the American former prisoners in Yemen, the report said there were about 10 other Americans not of Yemeni ancestry who have also moved there, married Yemeni women and adopted a radical form of Islam. None in that group, however, appear to have sought terrorist training, the report said.
In nearby Somalia, the Senate report recounted, news reports told of Somali-Americans traveling to join a militant group, the Shabab. It also described Americans caught entering Somalia from Djibouti.
An immigration official in Djibouti said that he had recently turned away two Somali-Americans trying to cross into Somalia, because he thought they might be trying to link up with the Shabab. Two others were arrested and prosecuted in Djibouti for entering illegally.
The possibility that American prisons could become an incubator for radical Islam has long been raised by experts on terrorism, and a few Muslim prison chaplains in United States prisons have been accused of having extremist views. To date, only a handful of alleged terrorist plots, none of them successful, have involved American Muslims who are former prisoners.
Three American Muslims were convicted for a 2005 plot to attack Jewish institutions and military bases around Los Angeles that was said to have been concocted inside New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento. Michael Finton, who converted to Islam while imprisoned in Illinois from 1999 to 2005, was charged last year with trying to blow up the federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill.
And four former New York state prisoners, at least two of whom converted to Islam in prison, were accused last year of plotting to attack synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes.
A. J. Sabree, a corrections official in Georgia and a Muslim, who worked for years as a prison chaplain, said he had never heard of Muslim former prisoners moving to Yemen. Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the New York State prison system, which employs about 40 imams to counsel inmates, said officials there were not aware of the phenomenon.
Mr. Kriss cautioned against equating conversion in prison to Islam, which is relatively common, to radicalization.
“We do not have any evidence of anything resembling widespread terrorist-inspired radicalization or recruiting,” he said. “But we recognize the potential and therefore remain vigilant in guarding against it.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
ANWAR AWLAKI KILLED BY DRONE STRIKE?!
*** No confirmation YET ***
*** http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/25/world/main6022035.shtml says Awlaki was NOT killed. ***
Yemeni airstrike targets top al Qaeda leaders
(From Intelwire)
The leader and the second in command of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as a radical, Yemeni-American cleric who is said to have inspired the Ft. Hood massacre, are said to have been killed during an airstrike in Yemen today, according to Yemeni officials. The deaths have not been confirmed by the US.
The Yemeni Air Force targeted Nasir al Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and his deputy Said al Shihri, as they gathered for a high-level meeting of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The terror group's top leaders were thought to have been gathering at the home of Anwar al Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric who provided religious justification for US Army Major Nidal Hasan to carry out a deadly shooting spree against US soldiers in Ft. Hood, Texas.
Wuhayshi and Shihri are said to have held the meeting at Awlaki's home to plot a response to last week's controversial cruise missile attack against terror camps in Sana'a and Abyan, Saba News, the official outlet of the Yemeni government, reported. The strike took place in the Al Said district in the Shabwa province. The government claimed that "about 30 al Qaeda suspects from Yemeni and foreign nationalities" were killed.
Wuhayshi is thought to have survived the strike, but the status of Shihri and Awlaki is unknown, according to the Yemen Observer.
US officials contacted by The Long War Journal would not comment on the status of Wuhayshi, Shihri, or Awlaki, nor would they discuss any US role in today's strike. The US carried out the Dec. 17 strike using air-launched cruise missiles.
The Yemeni government claimed 34 al Qaeda operatives were killed during the Dec. 17 strikes, including Abu Salih al Kazimi and two wanted Saudis, two Egyptians, and two Chechens. Kazimi commanded a terror training camp in Abyan and was the leader of a cell that killed eight Spanish tourists in Marib in July 2007. Opposition figures in Abyan claimed that 81 civilians were killed and 213 were wounded, all of them civilians. But al Mohammed Saleh al Awlaki, an al Qaeda leader in the region, addressed a crowd in Abyan and said the group's fight is against the US and that the group not wish to target the Yemeni military.
Wuhayshi is a top al Qaeda commander and a rising star in the organization. Wuhayshi served as Osama bin Laden's aide-de-camp and was one of 23 al Qaeda operatives to escape from a Yemeni jail in 2006. He is considered to be a top contender to take command of the global terror network if al Qaeda's central leadership based in Pakistan is decapitated in Pakistan, a senior US military intelligence official who closely tracks al Qaeda's network told The Long War Journal.
Shihri is a Saudi citizen who was detained by the US and transferred to Guantanamo Bay for his connections to al Qaeda. He served as an "al Qaeda travel facilitator" in Mashad, Iran, where he would help al Qaeda operatives enter Afghanistan. He was also connected to the Saudi 'charity' al Wafa, which has been designated under Executive Order 13224 as a terrorist organization and is briefly mentioned in the 9/11 Commission’s report as an al Qaeda front.
Shihri was released from Guantánamo in November of 2007 and placed into Saudi custody, where he then entered a rehabilitation program for former jihadists that is run by the government. Shihri played a direct role in al Qaeda’s attack on the American embassy in Sana'a, Yemen's capital, in September of 2008. That attack killed 10 civilians, along with six terrorists.
Awlaki is believed to be the cleric for three of the Sept. 11 hijackers. He fled to Yemen in 2002 after coming under suspicion and is associated with a Yemeni university run by Abdulmajeed al Zindani, Osama bin Laden’s spiritual advisor. Awlaki was in direct email communication with Major Hasan before the latter killed 13 US soldiers and civilians at a staging center for troops deploying overseas. Awlaki recently disclosed his conversations with Hasan to Al Jazeera.
"He was asking about killing American soldiers and officers. [He asked] whether this is a religiously legitimate act or not," al Awlaki told Aljazeera.net, according to a report in CBS News.
"The first message was asking for an edict regarding the [possibility] of a Muslim soldier killing his colleagues who serve with him in the American army," Awlaki continued. "In other messages, Nidal was clarifying his position regarding the killing of Israeli civilians. He was in support of this, and in his messages he mentioned the religious justifications for targeting the Jews with missiles. Then there were some messages in which he asked for a way through which he could transfer some funds to us [and by this] participate in charitable activities."
*** http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/25/world/main6022035.shtml says Awlaki was NOT killed. ***
Yemeni airstrike targets top al Qaeda leaders
(From Intelwire)
The leader and the second in command of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as a radical, Yemeni-American cleric who is said to have inspired the Ft. Hood massacre, are said to have been killed during an airstrike in Yemen today, according to Yemeni officials. The deaths have not been confirmed by the US.
The Yemeni Air Force targeted Nasir al Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and his deputy Said al Shihri, as they gathered for a high-level meeting of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The terror group's top leaders were thought to have been gathering at the home of Anwar al Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric who provided religious justification for US Army Major Nidal Hasan to carry out a deadly shooting spree against US soldiers in Ft. Hood, Texas.
Wuhayshi and Shihri are said to have held the meeting at Awlaki's home to plot a response to last week's controversial cruise missile attack against terror camps in Sana'a and Abyan, Saba News, the official outlet of the Yemeni government, reported. The strike took place in the Al Said district in the Shabwa province. The government claimed that "about 30 al Qaeda suspects from Yemeni and foreign nationalities" were killed.
Wuhayshi is thought to have survived the strike, but the status of Shihri and Awlaki is unknown, according to the Yemen Observer.
US officials contacted by The Long War Journal would not comment on the status of Wuhayshi, Shihri, or Awlaki, nor would they discuss any US role in today's strike. The US carried out the Dec. 17 strike using air-launched cruise missiles.
The Yemeni government claimed 34 al Qaeda operatives were killed during the Dec. 17 strikes, including Abu Salih al Kazimi and two wanted Saudis, two Egyptians, and two Chechens. Kazimi commanded a terror training camp in Abyan and was the leader of a cell that killed eight Spanish tourists in Marib in July 2007. Opposition figures in Abyan claimed that 81 civilians were killed and 213 were wounded, all of them civilians. But al Mohammed Saleh al Awlaki, an al Qaeda leader in the region, addressed a crowd in Abyan and said the group's fight is against the US and that the group not wish to target the Yemeni military.
Wuhayshi is a top al Qaeda commander and a rising star in the organization. Wuhayshi served as Osama bin Laden's aide-de-camp and was one of 23 al Qaeda operatives to escape from a Yemeni jail in 2006. He is considered to be a top contender to take command of the global terror network if al Qaeda's central leadership based in Pakistan is decapitated in Pakistan, a senior US military intelligence official who closely tracks al Qaeda's network told The Long War Journal.
Shihri is a Saudi citizen who was detained by the US and transferred to Guantanamo Bay for his connections to al Qaeda. He served as an "al Qaeda travel facilitator" in Mashad, Iran, where he would help al Qaeda operatives enter Afghanistan. He was also connected to the Saudi 'charity' al Wafa, which has been designated under Executive Order 13224 as a terrorist organization and is briefly mentioned in the 9/11 Commission’s report as an al Qaeda front.
Shihri was released from Guantánamo in November of 2007 and placed into Saudi custody, where he then entered a rehabilitation program for former jihadists that is run by the government. Shihri played a direct role in al Qaeda’s attack on the American embassy in Sana'a, Yemen's capital, in September of 2008. That attack killed 10 civilians, along with six terrorists.
Awlaki is believed to be the cleric for three of the Sept. 11 hijackers. He fled to Yemen in 2002 after coming under suspicion and is associated with a Yemeni university run by Abdulmajeed al Zindani, Osama bin Laden’s spiritual advisor. Awlaki was in direct email communication with Major Hasan before the latter killed 13 US soldiers and civilians at a staging center for troops deploying overseas. Awlaki recently disclosed his conversations with Hasan to Al Jazeera.
"He was asking about killing American soldiers and officers. [He asked] whether this is a religiously legitimate act or not," al Awlaki told Aljazeera.net, according to a report in CBS News.
"The first message was asking for an edict regarding the [possibility] of a Muslim soldier killing his colleagues who serve with him in the American army," Awlaki continued. "In other messages, Nidal was clarifying his position regarding the killing of Israeli civilians. He was in support of this, and in his messages he mentioned the religious justifications for targeting the Jews with missiles. Then there were some messages in which he asked for a way through which he could transfer some funds to us [and by this] participate in charitable activities."
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