Yemeni officials: Al Qaeda fighters kill 22 troops
Published May 10, 2012
Associated Press
SANAA, Yemen - Al-Qaeda militants staged a surprise attack Monday on a
Yemeni army base in the south, killing 22 soldiers and capturing 25 just
hours after a U.S. drone strike killed a senior figure in the terror network
wanted in connection with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
It was not immediately clear if the pre-dawn attack on the military base in
the southern Abyan province was in retaliation for the killing of Fahd
al-Quso, an Al Qaeda leader on the FBI's most wanted list.
The militants managed to reach the base both from the sea and by land,
gunning down troops and making away with weapons and other military hardware
after the blitz attack, Yemeni military officials said.
Yemen's Defense Ministry said in a statement that the attackers killed 22
troops and wounded 12. It did not mention captured soldiers.
Government forces later shelled militant positions elsewhere in Abyan,
killing 16 militants, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
The officials said the militants captured 25 soldiers from the base. In a
text message to reporters, Al Qaeda said it was holding 28 soldiers. The
difference in numbers could not be immediately reconciled.
Yemen has been waging an offensive on Al Qaeda, whose fighters took
advantage of the country's political turmoil during the past year to expand
their hold in the south, seizing entire cities and towns and large areas of
land. Abyan's provincial capital of Zinjibar has been held by al-Qaida for a
year.
The new Yemeni president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has promised improved
cooperation with the U.S. to combat the militants. On Saturday, he said the
fight against Al Qaeda was in its early stages. Hadi took over in February
from longtime authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.
On Sunday, al-Quso, the top Al Qaeda leader, was hit by a missile as he
stepped out of his vehicle along with another operative in the southern
Shabwa province, Yemeni military officials said.
The drone strike was carried out by the CIA, after an extended surveillance
operation by the CIA and U.S. military, two U.S. officials said, speaking on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to
reporters.
Al-Quso, 37, was on the FBI's most wanted list, with a $5 million reward for
information leading to his capture. He was indicted in the U.S. for his role
in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, in which
17 American sailors were killed and 39 injured.
He served more than five years in a Yemeni prison for his role in the attack
and was released in 2007. He briefly escaped prison in 2003 but later turned
himself in to serve the rest of his sentence.
A telephone text message claiming to be from Al Qaeda's media arm confirmed
al-Quso was killed in the strike.
He was also one of the most senior Al Qaeda leaders publicly linked to the
2009 Christmas airliner attack and allegedly met in Yemen with the suspected
Nigerian bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, before the Nigerian left to
execute his failed attack over Detroit with a bomb concealed in his
underwear.
In December 2010, al-Quso was designated a global terrorist by the State
Department, an indication that his role in Al Qaeda's Yemen offshoot, Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, had grown more prominent.
Local Yemeni official Abu Bakr bin Farid and the Yemeni Embassy in
Washington confirmed al-Quso was killed in Rafd, a remote mountain valley in
Shabwa. It is the area where many Al Qaeda leaders are believed to have
taken cover, including the U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed
in a U.S. airstrike last year.
Al-Quso's association with Al Qaeda dated back more than a decade, when he
met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bin Laden allegedly told him to
"eliminate the infidels from the Arabian Peninsula."
In 2000, al-Quso was assigned in Aden to videotape the bombing of the USS
Cole but fell asleep. Despite the lapse, he was declared the regional leader
in Aden. He was also believed to have played a prominent role in Al Qaeda's
attack and the capture last year of Zinjibar.
Read more:
<
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/07/yemeni-officials-al-qaeda-fighters-
kill-20-troops/#ixzz1uTCR23CO>
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/07/yemeni-officials-al-qaeda-fighters-k
ill-20-troops/#ixzz1uTCR23CO
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Received on Thu May 10 2012 - 08:40:45 EDT
