*Update* He survived…
(LWJ)-The radical US cleric who is thought to have advised three of the Sept. 11 hijackers as well as the Muslim-American US Army major who went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, survived Thursday’s airstrike in Yemen’s Shabwa province.
Friends and relatives of Ansar al Awlaki claimed he was not killed in the attack but refused to mention if he was in attendance of a meeting of al Qaeda leaders when it was hit by what the Yemeni government claimed were Yemeni Air Forces fighter-bombers.
Awlaki was thought to have been attending a high-level meeting of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on Dec. 24. He was at the meeting to provide the needed religious justification for a planned al Qaeda campaign to conduct attacks against Yemeni and US targets in response to the controversial Dec. 17 airstrikes gainst al Qaeda in Abyan and Sana’a, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal.
Among those believed to be at the meeting were Nasir al Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; his deputy Said al Shihri; and Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al Quso, an al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI for his role in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Wuhayshi and Quso also thought to have escaped the strike,while the status of Shihri is still unknown.
The Ft. Hood jihadist’s spiritual advisor Anwar al Awlaki was reportedly killed today in an air strike on a Yemeni terrorist camp.
Reuters reported:
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.
Related posts:
- Al Qaeda’s military commander in Yemen reported killed
- Imam claims he didn’t pressure Fort Hood jihadi Nidal Hassan
- BBC Reports that Taliban leader Mullah Omar has been killed
- Key al Qaeda figure killed in U.S. raid in Somalia
- Yemeni ship hijacked by Somali pirates
- Afghanistan: British soldier killed in raid to free US reporter
- Taliban leader killed in Pakistan? 14 dead in missile strike
- 25 Taliban killed in Predator Strike
- Yemeni muslim students stone Jewish students
- Another day, another threat from Al Qaeda
