.Senior Qaeda Figures Killed in Attack, Yemen Says
SANA, Yemen — A Yemeni airstrike on Friday afternoon killed at least five senior members of Al Qaeda’s Arabian branch, Yemeni officials said, including the group’s military commander.
The airstrike, on a remote mountainous area in northern Yemen not far from the Saudi border, was the latest in a new American-backed campaign to cripple Al Qaeda’s regional arm, which has gained global attention since it claimed responsibility for a failed effort to bomb a Detroit-bound passenger jet on Dec. 25.
If the death of the Qaeda military commander, Qassim al-Raymi, is confirmed, it would be a serious blow to the group. Many Yemeni officials and Western terrorism analysts agree that Mr. Raymi, a veteran jihadist and the main planner of Qaeda operations here, is the group’s most important and dangerous member. Yemeni officials have announced his death at least once before, and he has eluded several attempts on his life in the past three years.
It was not clear whether the airstrike was carried out with help or coordination from the United States, which has provided firepower and intelligence for some recent raids on Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate. The Yemeni government has struggled to play down that assistance, because the specter of American intervention arouses anger in Yemen and has been used by Al Qaeda to recruit new members.
The Yemeni government has also been trying to negotiate the surrender of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who is suspected of being linked to the bomber in the Dec. 25 attempt. In addition to holding talks with Mr. Awlaki’s tribe, the government has sent troops into the area where Mr. Awlaki is living — in remote Shabwa Province — to pressure the tribe to release him, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Yemeni officials must tread carefully in dealing with Mr. Awlaki, a popular American-born cleric who had brief contacts with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers and also counseled Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan of the United States Army, the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting spree in November. After leaving America in 2002, he became a persuasive recruiter for Al Qaeda and advocate for holy war against the West, in person and through Internet postings, Yemeni officials say.
“The Yemeni government doesn’t want to be seen as a lackey of the U.S., and it doesn’t want to make Awlaki a bigger deal than he already is,” said Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
In addition to Mr. Raymi, the airstrike on Friday killed at least four other Qaeda operatives, according to Yemen’s Interior Ministry, which listed the names and photographs of some of them on its Web site.
The men included Aidh al-Shabwani, a leader of the group in Marib Province, a crucial haven for militants. He was also hosting foreign jihadists joining Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch, analysts say. The increase in foreign fighters coming to Yemen — from Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as from Saudi Arabia — is one of the main reasons the United States has become more concerned about the group over the past year.
Others killed in the airstrike were identified as Salih al-Tays and Ibrahim al-Bina. The Interior Ministry statement also listed Omar al-Waeli, an important arms dealer for Al Qaeda, as among the dead. But there was some confusion about the details. A Yemeni official said he believed that Mr. Waeli had escaped the strike, and said the victims included an Egyptian identified as Abu Ayman, a form of nickname derived from the name of a son that is common in the Arab world. Another body had not yet been identified, the Interior Ministry statement said.
“A vehicle was seen leaving the area” where the airstrikes took place, the official said, and the Yemeni military was conducting an intensive search Friday night for militants who were believed to have escaped the attack.
Mr. Raymi, the 31-year-old Qaeda military commander, has been a top priority of Yemeni counterterrorism officials for years. Born in Sana, the Yemeni capital, he graduated from a religious school before traveling in the late 1990s to Afghanistan, where he trained at the Farouq camp and met Osama bin Laden, according to materials published by Al Qaeda on the Internet.
He was arrested in 2002 and charged with plotting to attack several embassies in Sana. He was sentenced to five years in prison but escaped in February 2006 along with 22 other high-level Qaeda members, in a major setback for counterterrorism efforts in Yemen. One of Mr. Raymi’s brothers, Ali al-Raymi, is a detainee at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.
NYT
The airstrike, on a remote mountainous area in northern Yemen not far from the Saudi border, was the latest in a new American-backed campaign to cripple Al Qaeda’s regional arm, which has gained global attention since it claimed responsibility for a failed effort to bomb a Detroit-bound passenger jet on Dec. 25.
If the death of the Qaeda military commander, Qassim al-Raymi, is confirmed, it would be a serious blow to the group. Many Yemeni officials and Western terrorism analysts agree that Mr. Raymi, a veteran jihadist and the main planner of Qaeda operations here, is the group’s most important and dangerous member. Yemeni officials have announced his death at least once before, and he has eluded several attempts on his life in the past three years.
It was not clear whether the airstrike was carried out with help or coordination from the United States, which has provided firepower and intelligence for some recent raids on Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate. The Yemeni government has struggled to play down that assistance, because the specter of American intervention arouses anger in Yemen and has been used by Al Qaeda to recruit new members.
The Yemeni government has also been trying to negotiate the surrender of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who is suspected of being linked to the bomber in the Dec. 25 attempt. In addition to holding talks with Mr. Awlaki’s tribe, the government has sent troops into the area where Mr. Awlaki is living — in remote Shabwa Province — to pressure the tribe to release him, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Yemeni officials must tread carefully in dealing with Mr. Awlaki, a popular American-born cleric who had brief contacts with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers and also counseled Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan of the United States Army, the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting spree in November. After leaving America in 2002, he became a persuasive recruiter for Al Qaeda and advocate for holy war against the West, in person and through Internet postings, Yemeni officials say.
“The Yemeni government doesn’t want to be seen as a lackey of the U.S., and it doesn’t want to make Awlaki a bigger deal than he already is,” said Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
In addition to Mr. Raymi, the airstrike on Friday killed at least four other Qaeda operatives, according to Yemen’s Interior Ministry, which listed the names and photographs of some of them on its Web site.
The men included Aidh al-Shabwani, a leader of the group in Marib Province, a crucial haven for militants. He was also hosting foreign jihadists joining Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch, analysts say. The increase in foreign fighters coming to Yemen — from Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as from Saudi Arabia — is one of the main reasons the United States has become more concerned about the group over the past year.
Others killed in the airstrike were identified as Salih al-Tays and Ibrahim al-Bina. The Interior Ministry statement also listed Omar al-Waeli, an important arms dealer for Al Qaeda, as among the dead. But there was some confusion about the details. A Yemeni official said he believed that Mr. Waeli had escaped the strike, and said the victims included an Egyptian identified as Abu Ayman, a form of nickname derived from the name of a son that is common in the Arab world. Another body had not yet been identified, the Interior Ministry statement said.
“A vehicle was seen leaving the area” where the airstrikes took place, the official said, and the Yemeni military was conducting an intensive search Friday night for militants who were believed to have escaped the attack.
Mr. Raymi, the 31-year-old Qaeda military commander, has been a top priority of Yemeni counterterrorism officials for years. Born in Sana, the Yemeni capital, he graduated from a religious school before traveling in the late 1990s to Afghanistan, where he trained at the Farouq camp and met Osama bin Laden, according to materials published by Al Qaeda on the Internet.
He was arrested in 2002 and charged with plotting to attack several embassies in Sana. He was sentenced to five years in prison but escaped in February 2006 along with 22 other high-level Qaeda members, in a major setback for counterterrorism efforts in Yemen. One of Mr. Raymi’s brothers, Ali al-Raymi, is a detainee at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.
NYT
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