Shabwa Events Unclear
OK one thing is clear, Anwar Awlaki is fine, just fine, despite that crazy media frenzy yesterday reporting his death..
So far seven is the number. Marib Press reports the air strike was on al Quso’s farm and Anwar Alwaki was not killed or injured, neither was Wahishi or al Quso.
al Jazeera: Abdullah al-Faqih, a professor of political science at Sanaa University, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that he was sceptical of the claims being made about al-Awlaki.
“He is the son of a colleague of mine at Sanaa University. His father is an adviser to the president of Yemen. If they really wanted him, they could phone him and tell him to come back to the capital and arrest him.
“I have serious doubts about him being a target – simply because he is well connected to the government and there is no serious case against him,” al-Faqih said.
Casualties disputed
Thursday’s raid supposedly struck at a meeting of al-Qaeda operatives in Wadi Rafadh, a remote mountainous region lies about 650km east of the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
Alongside al-Awlaki, several senior members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula – a group formed of al-Qaeda fighters in Yemen and Saudi Arabia – were also thought to have been killed in the raid.
But there was confusion over the number of casualties.
“Local sources have said that the casualties from this strike was seven people only,” Mohammed al-Qadhi, a correspondent in Yemen for Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper, told Al Jazeera.
“All of those are from al-Qaeda, according to local sources, but the government reports say there are more than 30 [dead].”
No confirmation
Nasser al-Whaychi, the head of al-Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula, was thought to have been present at the meeting at the time of the attack but it is not known if he was killed in the raid.
Initial reports also said that two other al-Qaeda commanders, identified by security sources as Saad al-Fathani and Mohammad Ahmed Saleh al-Oumir, were among those killed.
