Yemen says Fort Hood-linked imam may be dead

[darrels joy]

Yemen says Fort Hood-linked imam may be dead

7:27am EST
By Mohamed Sudam
SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni air raid may have killed the top two leaders of al Qaeda's regional branch on Thursday, and an American Muslim preacher linked to the man who shot dead 13 people at a U.S. army base may also have died, a Yemeni security official said.

Nasser al-Wahayshi, the Yemeni leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and his Saudi deputy, Saeed al-Shehri, were believed to be among 30 militants killed in the dawn operation in the eastern province of Shabwa, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may also have died in the air strike which targeted a meeting of militants planning attacks on Yemeni and foreign oil and economic targets, he said.

If all the deaths are confirmed, the air strike would appear to have struck a severe blow against AQAP, seen as the most dangerous regional offshoot of Osama bin Laden's network.

"Anwar al-Awlaki is suspected to be dead," the official said of the cleric who was on the run in Yemen, where he was on the government's most-wanted list of terrorist suspects.

According to U.S. officials, the U.S. army psychiatrist who ran amok at the Fort Hood army base in Texas on November 5 had contacts with Awlaki.

The Yemeni official said one leading figure in AQAP, Mohammed Saleh Omair, was confirmed dead in Thursday's raid.

The United States cooperates closely with Yemen in combating al Qaeda militancy. Pentagon officials were not immediately available to comment on any U.S. involvement in the raid.

The Yemeni official mentioned only one air strike, which a government website said had taken place at 5 a.m., but Al Arabiya television reported four raids.

Resurgent al Qaeda attacks have stirred fears that worsening instability in Yemen, an impoverished country struggling with multiple security threats, might enable militants to launch renewed attacks in neighboring oil superpower Saudi Arabia.

Al Qaeda's wing in Yemen, where Osama bin Laden's father was born, announced in January it had changed its name to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- in an apparent attempt to revive the group in Saudi Arabia, where a tough counter-terrorism drive had halted the group's three-year armed campaign in 2006.

Wahayshi, the new group's Yemeni leader, threatened attacks against Westerners in the oil-exporting region. AQIP has also called for the overthrow of the U.S.-allied Saudi royal family.

"(The) Interior Ministry has ordered its bodies and offices in all governorates to raise security alert and tighten defense procedures at the important facilities and vital interests all over the country in anticipation of any retaliatory operations," the government website said.

Yemen's Supreme Security Committee issued a warning to citizens in Shabwa province not to aid the militants.

Yemen said it had killed about 30 al Qaeda militants and arrested 17 in air strikes and security sweeps a week ago in the eastern province of Abyan and in Arhab, northeast of Sanaa. It said the operations had foiled several planned suicide bombings.

A Yemeni opposition website quoted sources in Abyan as saying that last week's raid there had killed dozens of civilians, including 18 children and 41 women and men.

Yemen, which has intensified its campaign against al Qaeda militants over recent weeks, is also facing a Shi'ite rebellion in the north and secessionist violence in the south.

(Writing by Amran Abocar; Editing by Alistair Lyon/David Stamp)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BN0S220091224

[darrels joy]

Bonus: Yemen strike may have also killed Gitmo alumnus

posted at 10:12 am on December 24, 2009 by Ed Morrissey


If one was inclined to see the well-deserved death of Anwar al-Awlaki in the Yemen strike as a gift from Santa Claus, perhaps we can consider Saeed Ali al-Shehri as a stocking stuffer. Jake Tapper reports that Shihri, a former Gitmo detainee released by the Bush administration who returned to help lead al-Qaeda in Yemen, was killed in the same strike that killed Awlaki and a total of 30 attendees of an AQ leadership meeting (via No Runny Eggs):

Those believed to have been present at the target in the eastern province Shabwa included the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wahayshi, his No. 2, Saeed al-Shehri, and Anwar al-Awlaki, who was quoted telling Al Jazeera Web that Maj. Nidal Hasan, asked him “about killing U.S. soldiers and officers. His question was is it legitimate” under Islamic law.

Tapper reminds his readers of Shehri’s journey:

Saeed al-Shehri, a Saudi and former detainee at Guantanamo, was transferred to the Saudi government by the administration of President George W. Bush on November 9, 2007. He went through jihadi rehab at the “Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Centre for Care and Counseling,” where participants undergo a 12-step program to prepare them to return to society. Al-Shehri instead returned to al Qaeda.

If nothing else, this shows the folly of returning hardened terrorists to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, a move that the Obama administration plans to make with almost 100 current Gitmo inmates. Jihadi rehab has a fairly high recidivism rate, and they’re not curing alcoholics. Shehri should never have been released in the first place, and the fact that we had to go after him twice should make us think twice about releasing any more, especially in Yemen.

At least this time we didn’t bother with capturing Shehri. We’re learning something from this process.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/2...gitmo-alumnus/

[revwardoc]

Yes! A two-fer!

[darrels joy]

Radical Yemeni Cleric Believed Unhurt in Airstrike


Friday, 25 Dec 2009 04:23 PM
Article Font Size





A U.S.-born radical cleric is alive and well following reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against suspected al-Qaida hideouts, friends and relatives said Friday.

The government said it targeted a meeting of high-level al-Qaida operatives in Thursday's airstrike in the remote Shabwa region. It claimed at least 30 militants were killed, possibly including Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who has been linked to the shooter in last month's attack at the Fort Hood military base in the U.S.

On Friday, a friend of the cleric, Abu Bakr al-Awlaki, told The Associated Press he was not among those killed. He refused to say if the cleric was attending the meeting.

Abu Bakr al-Awlaki was in Shabwa and in contact with the gunmen in control of the area following the strike. He is not related to the cleric, but the two are from the same tribe and carry the same last name.

Thursday's airstrikes were the second in a week against al-Qaida and were carried out with U.S. and Saudi intelligence help. The newly aggressive Yemeni campaign, backed by American aid, reflects Washington's fears that the terror network could turn this fragmented, unstable nation into an Afghanistan-like refuge in a highly strategic location on the border with oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni government said it struck a gathering of senior al-Qaida figures in Rafd, a remote mountain valley in eastern Shabwa province, where they were plotting new terror attacks.

In addition to al-Awlaki, the top leader of al-Qaida's branch in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, and his deputy Saeed al-Shihri were also believed to be at the meeting, Yemen's Supreme Security Committee said.

But Yemeni officials still have no access to the area, which is controlled by armed gunmen and supporters of al-Qaida, and could not confirm for certain who was killed in the attack.

Saudi officials were not immediately available for comment on Friday.

In Washington, a U.S. government official who was briefed on the strike told The Associated Press that there has been no confirmation yet of who was killed in the strike. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the attack.

Al-Awlaki was born in the United States and moved back to Yemen in 2002. Al-Awlaki reportedly corresponded by e-mail with Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov.5.

People close to al-Alwaki said it is unlikely the cleric would be sitting through a field meeting convened by fighters, considering he saw his role as a scholar and one that gives religious advises and rulings.

The cleric's brother, who only agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said he also received assurances that his older sibling is still alive.

A tribal chief in Shabwa, who only used his alias Abu Mohammed, said he was informed that Anwar al-Alwaki was alive and is unharmed. He refused to elaborate.

So far, residents of the area and relatives of those killed say six bodies have been retrieved from the area of the strike and buried. The relatives spoke on condition of anonymity because they were still at the area controlled by the gunmen.

http://newsmax.com/US/ML-Yemen-Al-Qa...2/25/id/344650

[revwardoc]

Damn shame they missed the POS.