Armies of Liberation

Abdulmutallab was found guilty and sentenced to death for trying to murder all the people on the airliner. I’m sure he’ll appeal.

USA Today: According to court documents, Abdulmutallab spent months pursuing American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, where the two men eventually met and hatched out a plan to blow up an American airliner over U.S. soil on Christmas Day 2009. In the weeks leading up to the bombing attempt, the two men texted each other, spoke briefly on the phone and ended up spending three days together at al-Awlaki’s house planning the attack, the government wrote in court documents. (Read on …)

The Yemeni-American teenager is widely perceived in Yemen as an innocent, and therefore his death in a US drone strike is causing mass outrage on a level much, much greater than that of his father. There is a birth certificate showing he was 16 at the time of his death, and many photos have been posted. Like the December 2009 strikes, its the civilian casualties of US drone strikes that provoke mass public outrage. Yemeni would have liked to see some evidence on Awlaki or better yet, to bring him to trial. But killing his teen-age son, or any innocent teen, is way over the top of acceptable counter-terror collateral damage, Yemenis say.

Yemen Post According to the al-Awlaki family back in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, Abdul rahman al-Awlaki, the cleric’s son would have run away from home after news of his father’s death in a desperate bid to find him. The 17 year-old was killed subsequently in an American air raid this Friday. Outraged, his family is now speaking out against what they call a murder.

The family’s statements to the WaPo is here. His family says he ran away from home and was having a picnic when the drone hit. However what he was doing with known terrorist Ibrahim al Banaa and Fahd al Quso’s brother is unknown and not raised in the article.

Related: I posted this below but it belongs in a drone-related post: Marib Press Tribes in Marib issued a statement saying Sheikh Saleh al Taaman was killed in the air rad with Ibrahim al Banaa but not reported killed by the regime. The Sheikh was connected to the state’s security policy and paid by Ghalib al Qamish (PSO) 100K YR/month; tribesmen accuse the regime of the manipulating the terror file and US CT ops to retain power. They say the Sheikh was not listed among the dead and that’s reason to ignore the regime’s fatality lists.

dtd 5/24,

Newser

(Newser) – The FBI has now definitively linked top al-Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri to a trio of explosives used in two recent attempts to attack the US, via a fingerprint and forensic evidence. Al-Asiri, who works in Yemen with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was already suspected of being involved with the Christmas Day “underwear bomber” in 2009; investigators have pulled one of his fingerprints off that bomb. They also determined that the explosives used in the underwear bomb are chemically identical to those hidden inside two printers shipped from Yemen last year; al-Asiri had also been suspected in that plot.

Many in Yemen underestimate the danger of AQAP because they fail to realize that Anwar al Awlaki and thus AQAP are connected to almost every terror plot in the US over the last five years. Its not only the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, or the attack by Abdulmutallab on an airliner over Detroit in 2009, or the 2010 plot to bomb six planes with toner cartridges, there are also dozen and dozens of smaller plots in the US that never seem to make the news in Yemen. The US is under attack by AQAP. Ali Saleh’s al Qaeda could be a state creation, but the real al Qaeda live in Yemen too and they are not giving up their plans for a catastrophic attack on the US. Reuters Bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri added to US terrorist listing, already tops Saudi Arabia’s terrorism list.

CP: While the target and timing were unimportant, the mission itself was a highly organized plot that involved one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists and al-Qaida’s go-to bomb maker, current and former officials said. Before Abdulmutallab set off on his mission, he visited the home of al-Qaida manager Fahd al-Quso to discuss the plot and the workings of the bomb. (Read on …)

Control of the airports was transferred from the Political Security to the National Security several years ago when many jihaddists were overtly traveling to Iraq to target American troops. Since then the National Security has done a great job in prohibiting activists, journalists and opposition politicians from leaving the country.

SCD: The US Government is committed to improving airport security at home and abroad. The Transportation Security Administration announced today that a new security program will be established in Yemen, where an Al-Qaeda affiliate is believed to be based. The affiliate, which goes by the name, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has claimed responsibility for a cargo bomb plot in October, which deployed printer cartridges rigged as bombs. (Read on …)

Awlaki is a bit more than a propaganda threat it seems. I would assume that Feierstein knows more facts than the rest of us. In addition to Awlaki’s role in the cargo plane plot, numerous persons admitted to being “inspired” to murderous violence by Awlaki who has urged and provided a (flawed yet comprehensive) basis for the murder of any American, indeed all Americans. Awlaki has engaged operationally with al Qaeda for years, well before Fort Hood and the Nigerian but he avoided public linkage with al Qaeda and sought protection under the guise of a normal cleric, which the Yemeni government provided.

Xinhuanet — U.S. ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein accused the U.S.-born Yemeni preacher Anwar al-Awlaki of being behind the detected parcel bombs mailed from Yemen to the U.S. late October, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news website reported Wednesday.

Feierstein confirmed in an interview with Al Arabiya that “al- Awlaki was behind the two al-Qaida-made package bombs shipped through cargo planes bound for the United States late October, a plot that was foiled at the airports of Dubai and London following tip-offs from Saudi intelligence officials.”

Feierstein also said the Washington administration will not grant Yemen with Predator drones, but it will do the job from the Yemeni skies by itself while continuing supporting and training the Yemeni ground troops to combat terrorist militants, including al-Awlaki, who poses threats to Yemen, U.S. and Europe.

they’re not sure, its complicated… BTW, he’s not a cleric, just a lunatic. In related news, Farouk the Nigerian fired his lawyers and wants to represent himself in court.

Boston.com WASHINGTON –The Obama administration is considering filing the first criminal charges against radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in case the CIA fails to kill him and he is captured alive in Yemen. The decision continues the White House’s strategy of fighting terrorism both in court and on the battlefield.

Al-Awlaki, a U.S. and Yemeni citizen born in New Mexico, has inspired a wave of attempted attacks against the U.S. and has become al-Qaida’s leading English-speaking voice for recruiting and motivating terrorists. Counterterrorism officials said al-Awlaki, since mid-2009, has become a key operational figure who selects targets and gives orders. (Read on …)

WAPo

For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA analysts see one of al-Qaeda’s offshoots – rather than the core group now based in Pakistan – as the most urgent threat to U.S. security, officials said.

The sober new assessment of al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has helped prompt senior Obama administration officials to call for an escalation of U.S. operations there – including a proposal to add armed CIA drones to a clandestine campaign of U.S. military strikes, the officials said. (Read on …)

Several other foreigners were arrested in Yemen including Americans, Brits, French, Asians and Africans, at the behest of foreign intelligence agencies. Yemeni security said the group was linked to the Nigerian’s airliner terror plot and Anwar Awlaki who repeatedly announces how proud he is to have been Abdulmattalab’s “teacher.”

An Australian woman, Shyloh Giddins, was arrested in Yemen May 15. Her two children are under house arrest alone, with a neighbor tending to them twice a day. Giddens was associated with some Bengali citizens who were later deported from Yemen. ”

Yemen holds Americans, others in al-Qaida probe
By AHMED AL-HAJ (AP)

SAN’A, Yemen — Yemeni authorities have detained several foreigners, including Americans, Britons and an Australian woman, in connection with an investigation into al-Qaida’s increased activity in the country, security officials said Wednesday.

The arrests were made after foreign intelligence agencies provided lists of names of people they wanted detained or put under surveillance, the two security officials said. (Read on …)

Qatani was designated as a member of a terror group this week by the US. State Dept. and the UN along with Qasim al Reimi.

Guardian A senior leader of the al-Qaida cell which attempted to assassinate the British ambassador to Sanaa and blow up a US passenger jet last Christmas has been killed in Saudi Arabia, according to a Yemeni source close to the group.

Nayif Mohammed Saeed al-Qahtani, described as the link man between the Saudi and Yemeni branches of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was killed in a shoot-out last month with Saudi security forces, according to a Yemeni journalist, AbdulElah Shaea. (Read on …)

Its such a bad training video, really pathetic. Do they think the music will make everyone not notice what a bunch of bumbling idiots they look like, so they released it again???

ABC news: The new al Qaeda video of accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at a desert training camp included footage that had been released previously, in January, 2009, according to a frame by frame analysis by terrorism expert Evan Kohlman of Flashpoint Global Partners. (Read on …)

What a pathetic bunch of losers if there ever was one…

ABC: New videos produced by al Qaeda in Yemen show the accused underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and others in his training class firing weapons at a desert camp whose targets included the Jewish star, the British Union Jack and the letters “UN.” (Read on …)

- Nasheri to military trial

- dated 2/14/10, Newsweek: In late January, an Al Qaeda operative headed from Pakistan on his way to Yemen was arrested in the Persian Gulf country of Oman, a U.S. counter-terrorism official confirmed…Even more noteworthy, the postings -written by a fellow Al Qaeda “brother” – reported that Al Eidan had with him 300 “important phone numbers” as well as pictures, names and documents from Afghanistan. (Read on …)

This is all coming from the governor of Abyan, al Maseri. A Pakistani expert came to Yemen last year to train them on smaller, undetectable explosives and he died at some point in a work accident. Another Pakistani gave training on poisen gases. Four months ago they got aid with the help of non-Yemenis in the organization. Al Maseri says the security forces found a similiar substance to that used to attack Prince Naif.

Saudi Gazette Pakistani built bomb to kill Prince, says Yemeni official
By Abdullah Al-Oraifij
ABYAN, Yemen – Dramatic new claims have been made that a Pakistani explosives expert was responsible for manufacturing the bomb that was used by a suicide bomber in a failed attempt to assassinate Prince Muhammad Bin Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, Assistant Interior Minister for Security Affairs at his palace in Jeddah last August.
Talking to Okaz, Ahmad Al-Maseeri, Governor of Abyan in Yemen, said that the man who made the explosive capsule, used by Abdullah Hasan Al-Asiri in his attempt to kill the Prince, was a Pakistani. (Read on …)

In an audio tape broadcast by al Jazeera today, al Qaeda leader Usama Bin Laden claimed credit for the failed plot to bomb an airliner as it was landing in Detroit, December 25. Bin Laden called the Nigerian perpetrator of the plot, Abdulmutallab Al-Farouq , “a hero” and said the plot was intended to send the same message as the attacks of 9/11.

“America will not even dream of security, until security becomes a reality in Palestine. It is not fair that you enjoy your lives, while our brothers in Gaza live in hardship. Therefore, our raids against you will continue, Allah willing, as long as your support of the Israelis continues.”

The attack had earlier been claimed by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Nasir al Wahishi, a former lieutenant of bin Laden, is heading the terror group’s offshoot in Yemen. The group merged in January 2009 with al Qaeda’s Saudi branch. Saudi Said al Shihri is the military commander of the organization.
ON January 19, the US State Department designated al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The group and two of its two top leaders Nasir al-Wahishi and Said al-Shihri were also designated under executive order number 13224. The UN’s 1267 committee also designated AQAP as a terrorist organization along with al Wahishi and al Shihir. As a result all UN member states are required to freezes their asserts, ban travel and embargo arms transfers to these entities.

Prior to being read his Miranda rights, Al Farouq claimed that he was trained by al Qaeda in Yemen and many other suicide bombers had undergone training in Yemen. The UK raised its terror threat level to “severe” in advance of a conference on Yemen scheduled for January 27 in London.

DUBAI — Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the botched Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner and vowed further strikes on US targets, in an audio message broadcast on Sunday. (Read on …)

frick NY Times: WASHINGTON — Worried about possible terrorist attacks over the Christmas holiday, President Obama met on Dec. 22 with top officials of the C.I.A., F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security, who ticked off a list of possible plots against the United States and how their agencies were working to disrupt them. (Read on …)

WASHINGTON: Twenty other young Muslim radicals have been trained to blow up planes by al-Qaida in Yemen, a young Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a US airliner has told FBI.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, has told FBI that close to 20 other young Muslim men were being prepared in Yemen to use the same technique to blow up airliners, CBS said in an exclusive investigative report.

US surprised by AQAP’s links to Pakistan? Say it aint so…

Newsweek: U.S. officials have been surprised by what they’ve discovered about the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt by a Nigerian student who says he was trained and equipped there. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as this offshoot is called, is linked directly to the “core” group in Pakistan and it is now “one of the most lethal” affiliates, White House counterterrorism coordinator John Brennan said at a news conference.

Times Online:

Yemeni security sources believe that of the 15-20 Britons recently recruited by Al-Qaeda, most have undergone training in camps in Rafad, a mountainous region in the southeast. It lies in the province where Abdulmutallab is thought to have met Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who is viewed as a big influence in luring foreign recruits to Al-Qaeda.

One institution popular with British Muslims is Dar alHadith in Dammaj, northern Yemen. US defence officials have described the institute as a “known terrorist training centre”. This has always been denied by the institute.

Students can access weapons there, and teachings have traditionally been anti-western. Students are told that democracy is an enemy of Islam and locals are reported to refer to America as “the great Satan”.

Abu Muaz, head of the Salafi Youth Movement in the UK, said about 50 Britons had gone to study at Dar al-Hadith. “Most want to learn about Islam, but there are some jihadi supporters who decide to take up arms,” he said.

Anwar’s been a busy bee, issuing fatwas, negotiating tribal alliances, and meeting with would be suicide bombers. In his recent public statements and interviews, Awlaki justified attacks on US military personnel as legitimate jihad. Apparently he also promoted attacks on civilians as acceptable (if not required) by Islamic law. LAT:

Under questioning by the FBI, Abdulmutallab has said that he met with Awlaki and senior Al Qaeda members during an extended trip to Yemen this year, and that the cleric was involved in some elements of planning or preparing the attack and in providing religious justification for it, officials said. (Read on …)

Washington Post

SANAA, YEMEN — The Yemeni American cleric at the center of investigations into last month’s massacre of 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., became more openly radical in Yemen, following a path taken by other extremists in this failing Middle East nation with a growing al-Qaeda presence, according to relatives, friends and associates in Yemen. (Read on …)

Fox News: CAIRO — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on Monday claimed responsibility for the attack on a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day, saying it was retaliation for a U.S. operation against the group in Yemen. (Read on …)