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Arabia

Al-Qaida Kills 2 Alleged Spies After Yemen Leader Killed

2015-06-18

[ABCNEWS.GO] Al-Qaeda murderous Moslems in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... killed two men accused of spying for the United States and hung their bodies off a bridge on Wednesday, a day after the jihadi group announced the death of its leader in a U.S. drone strike. Witnesses said al-Qaeda gunnies in the southern city of Mukalla read out charges before shooting the two men, one of whom was accused of guiding the U.S. drone that killed commander Nasr al-Ansi and a media liaison known as Muhannad Ghalab in April. Al-Qaeda supporters posted pictures online that showed the two men blindfolded on a sandy beach, said to be the site of a previous drone strike. Another picture showed a body in bloody clothes with its arms spread apart and lashed to a pole, dangling off the side of a bridge. The killings came a day after al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... , as the Yemeni affiliate is known, said its leader, Nasir al-Wahishi, was killed in a U.S. drone strike last week. Al-Qaeda captured Mukalla in April after Yemen's army splintered between allies and opponents of Iranian catspaws known as Houthis, who captured the capital last year. But the city has proven to be something of a death trap, with U.S. drone strikes in and around Mukalla killing not only al-Wahishi and al-Ansi, but also a senior religious ideologue, Ibrahim al-Rubaish. In series of online postings, al-Qaeda members said one of the two men rubbed out Wednesday was a Saudi national loyal to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , an al-Qaeda breakaway group that controls vast swaths of Iraq and Syria. They identified him as Musaed al-Khaweitar, saying he ran an al-Qaeda-linked media outlet and was close to top leaders. The second man, identified as Abu Ayman al-Mutairi, is also believed to be Saudi. AQAP is widely seen as the terror network's most dangerous offshoot, and claimed the attack on the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo ...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe... in January, which killed 12 people. It has also been linked to a number of attempts to attack the United States with bombs snuck past airport security. An Nahar adds: They were accused of planting tracking chips in vehicles and clothes used by al-Qaeda leaders, allowing drones to target them, a local official in southeastern Mukalla said.

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Home Front: WoT

U.S. Brands Norwegian a Terrorist for Joining Al-Qaida

2014-07-16

[An Nahar] The United States slapped a terrorist designation on a Norwegian citizen Tuesday for joining al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, where, according to the State Department, he was taught to make explosives. Anders Cameroon Ostensvig Dale was designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. "As a result of the designation, all property subject to U.S. jurisdiction in which Dale has any interest is blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with Dale or to his benefit," the State Department said in a statement. He is accused of traveling multiple times to Yemen between 2008 and 2011, and joining the bully boy network al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. "As part of AQAP, Dale has received terrorist training and was taught to make bomb-belts, improvised bombs, and larger explosives used in boom-mobiles," the department said. In a note to the Office of the Federal Register affirming the designation, Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... wrote that Dale, also known as Abu Abdurrahman the Norwegian, "committed, or poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States." Washington designated AQAP as a terrorist organization in early 2010 and has since branded many of its leaders, including Qasim al-Rimi and Nasir al-Wahishi, as specially designated global terrorists.

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Arabia

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula grimaces fearsomely, warns US of new jihad

2011-05-12

[Dawn] Al Qaeda's supremo in Yemen -- the late Osama bin Laden's ... who had a brief but splitting headache... ancestral homeland -- has warned Americans of a bloodier jihadist struggle to come following the terror criminal mastermind's killing by US commandos. The warning from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula came as top US Senator John I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, the Senate's current foreign policy expert, filling the vacated wingtips of Joe Biden... announced a trip to mend fences with a resentful Pakistain, where bin Laden was bumped off, but also to seek answers on how he came to be there. "Bin Laden? The man was a friend of a friend. He showed up at our door one day with wives and kiddies in tow -- we couldn't just turn him away. But it's not like we put him up in a palace with maids and dancing girls!" Pakistain Wednesday saw the first possible violent reaction to bin Laden's death, as drive-by attackers threw grenades at the Soddy Arabian consulate in Bloody Karachi, the country's biggest city. A local official said authorities were taking measures fearing a "big attack" to come. AQAP leader Nasir al-Wahishi said in a statement posted on an Islamist website that the "ember of jihad (holy war) is brighter" following the May 2 killing of bin Laden, according to the SITE monitoring group. The Yemen-based runaway warned Americans not to fool themselves that the "matter will be over" with the killing of bin Laden, the Saudi-born architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks. "Do not think of the battle superficially... What is coming is greater and worse, and what is awaiting you is more intense and harmful," Wahishi said, according to a SITE translation. "We promise Allah that we will remain firm in the covenant and that we will continue the march, and that the death of the sheikh will only increase our persistence to fight the Jews and the Americans in order to take Dire Revenge™." The United States has warned of the threat posed by Islamist militancy in Yemen, the homeland of bin Laden's father, and has warned of the potential for the country to become a new staging ground for Al-Qaeda. AQAP was born of a January 2009 merger between the Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda branches. It claimed a failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound US airliner in December 2009 and was accused in October of sending parcel bombs addressed to US synagogues that were disguised inside computer printers. Four days after bin Laden was killed in the US raid on his sprawling compound about two hours' drive from the Pak capital Islamabad, a dronezap targeted US-Yemeni holy man Anwar al-Awlaqi in southern Yemen. The holy man, who Washington says has strong links to al-Qaeda, survived the attack but two AQAP members were killed.

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Afghanistan

Osama's top aide Nasir al-Wahishi killed in drone strike

2011-01-03

Nasir al-Wahishi, a top al-Qaeda commander, who reportedly served as an aide of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a US drone attack in northwestern Pakistan on December 28. Well done, O anonymous UAV pilots, and those who point them toward their targets! Al-Wahishi, 32, a Yemeni national, who presided over the January 2009 merger of Saudi Arabian and Yemeni splinters of al-Qaeda, was killed in the year end. Wahishi was killed when two missiles were fired on a militant camp at the Ghulam Khan sub-district of North Waziristan, Kyodo reported quoting Pakistani officials. Al-Wahishi is among four top al-Qaeda commanders killed in American drone strikes which assumed unprecedented proportions in 2010. Those killed by US missiles include al-Qaeda number 3 Abu Mustafa al-Yazid, Sheikh Fateh al-Misri, al-Qaeda's operations head for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who replaced Yazid. The two other commanders killed were Abdallah Umar al-Qurayshi, who co-ordinated Osama bin Laden's Arabs in Afghanistan, and explosives expert Abu Atta al-Kuwaiti. The drones have also felled top Taliban commanders including its chief Baitullah Mehsud and the trainer of suicide bombers Qari Hussain Mehsud. The officials claimed Wahishi had served as secretary of bin Laden until 2003. He was arrested in Iran and extradited to Yemen in 2003. The al-Qaeda commander was among 23 Yemeni captives who made a dramatic escape from maximum security prison in Sana'a, in 2006 and was at large since then. The Yemeni figures in the Interpol's Orange Notice as well as US State Departments and UN Sanctions List. Not a bad year, on this front. Congratulations all around!

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Africa Horn

Yemen says 6 al Qaeda leaders killed

2010-01-16

Air raids in northern Yemen killed six operatives with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen's Ministry of Defense said Friday. The main target was the group's military commander, Qassim al-Raimi, the Yemeni Embassy to the United States said in a written statement. The defense ministry said al-Raimi was killed. A Yemeni government official briefed in detail on the matter said the Yemeni government is "almost certain" that al-Raimi was killed. The official described al-Raimi as the third-highest-ranking figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. The group has claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner on December 25. Investigators have said intelligence ties the bombing suspect, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, to the group. I'd like to see them try that again. Yemeni forces carried out an air raid at 2:30 p.m. near Alajasher in the country's far north, the Yemeni Embassy to the United States said in its statement. "Security authorities suspect that three of al Qaeda's most dangerous operatives -- Ammar Ubadah al-Waeli, Ayeth Jaber al-Shebwani, Saleh al-Tayes -- may have been also eliminated," the embassy said. "Furthermore, counterterrorism units backed by helicopters continue to hunt down two al Qaeda operatives that escaped the air raid." The Yemeni government official briefed on the matter said al-Shebwani was killed. He was in charge of recruiting people into the group in the Ma'areb region and was a "very important figure, the person who provided logistical support to all foreign nationals recruited in AQAP in Yemen," the official said. A Yemeni security official with knowledge of the case said colleagues said another operative killed was Abu Ayman al-Masri. Yet another Egyptian, it appears. The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center's Web site says that after al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula emerged in January 2009, its leadership was composed of al-Raimi and the group's emir, Nasir al-Wahishi, both of them "veteran Yemeni extremist leaders," as well as two Saudis, one of whom surrendered to Saudi authorities last year. Friday's air raid "marks the fifth major strike on al Qaeda positions in less than a month," the embassy said.

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Arabia

Yemen: Man Claims To Head Al-Qaeda's Local Branch

2007-06-22

Sanaa, 22 June (AKI) - A man identifying himself as Abu Basir Nasir al-Wahishi - one of 28 terrorist suspects who in February 2006 fled a high security prison in Sanaa - has claimed in an audio message posted on Islamist internet forums that he is the leader of al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen. The man who also uses the battlename Abu Hureira al-Sanaani, said his group's full name is al-Qaeda of the Jihad in Yemen. Most of those involved in the 2006 jailbreak were re-arrested while those who successfully escaped are believed by Yemeni authorities to have sought refuge in Somalia or in Yemen's remote southern Hadramawt province. “I have been nominated leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen and I say no to any surrender to government forces. Ignorance and Islam can never blend together. Several tyrants have tried to insert ignorance in Islam but they have all failed," the man said in the 20 minute-long recording. “I have been nominated leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen and I say no to any surrender to government forces. Ignorance and Islam can never blend together. Several tyrants have tried to insert ignorance in Islam but they have all failed," the man said in the 20 minute-long recording. "They want us to renege our beliefs and to repudiate some of our principles. But during this time when they have been waging their crusader war, the enemies are being defeated as is happening in Afghanistan at the hands of the mujahadeen," Yemen authorities have for some time suspected an al-Qaeda presence in the country blaming the terror network for a failed attempt to attack two oil plants last September.

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