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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Defectors Spill Al Qaeda Beans: Boom Boom Bye-Bye |
| 2005-05-14 |
| A leading al-Qaeda bomb-maker has been killed in a US missile strike as America and Pakistan exploit worsening ethnic rifts within the terror network. The death of Haitham al-Yemeni comes shortly after Pakistan captured Osama bin Laden's suspected third-in-command using intelligence from disaffected militants. Abu Faraj al-Libbi was traced after exiled Uzbek fighters on the Pakistan-Afghan border who had fallen out with al-Qaeda's Arab-dominated leadership gave Pakistani intelligence officials his mobile phone number. The capture of al-Libbi and death of al-Yemeni show how ethnic fissures are effecting al-Qaeda. Uzbek and other Central Asian extremists are co-operating in return for cash and permission to stay in Pakistan. "The Arabs and Central Asians are competing for protection," said Kenneth Katzman, a terror analyst with the Congressional Research Service in Washington. "The Central Asians are losing out because the Arabs have the money and the respect of the locals." An al-Qaeda training camp at Shakai, on the Afghan border, was destroyed after fighters from the former Soviet territories of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya revealed its whereabouts. |
| Posted by:Captain America |