You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Arabia
Yemen says launching manhunt for Qaeda in Shabwa
2010-10-25
[Al Arabiya] Yemen said on Sunday it had launched a manhunt for al-Qaeda in its southern Shabwa province, the same day a U.S.-born Mohammedan holy man sought by Washington and thought to be hiding in that area appeared in an online video.

Late on Saturday, U.S.-based terrorism monitoring service SITE Institute released a video tape showing Anwar al-Awlaki sitting at a table in traditional Yemeni garb and delivering a religious lecture in Arabic.

Yemeni security forces and local tribes began combing the mountainous Said district in Shabwa for al-Qaeda cut-throats on Saturday morning, a security official in Shabwa told Rooters. Primitives of Awlaki's own tribe were helping with the search, the official said.

The Shabwa governor and the Awlaki clan have signed a deal under which they would "expel al-Qaeda elements from their territories and mount a joint operation with the army (to do so)," he added.

Washington accuses Awlaki of being a leading al-Qaeda figure with links to a failed bombing of a U.S.-bound plane in December 2009 and to an army major who went on a shooting spree that killed 13 people last year at Fort Hood in Texas.

The U.S. Treasury has blacklisted Awlaki as a "specially designated International Man of Mystery™", a move that freezes any assets he may have under U.S. jurisdiction.

Earlier this year, the United States authorized the CIA to capture or kill him.

On Oct. 11, four people were killed after two bombs went kaboom! at a sports stadium in Aden. The trial of 10 suspects in the attack began in Aden on Sunday.

SITE said the video featuring Awlaki, which was less than two minutes long, had been posted on an Islamist website used by cut-thoats. The footage appeared to be a fragment of a longer recording, the date of which was unclear.

Washington and neighboring top oil exporter Soddy Arabia fear Yemen's resurgent al-Qaeda wing may use the increasingly unstable country to launch attacks in the region and beyond.
Posted by:Fred

#1  TOPIX > YEMEN ESTIMATES 400 AL-QAEDA MILITANTS [fighters]IN COUNTRY + YEMEN GOVT. DENIES GUERILLA WAR BEING FOUGHT BY AL-QAEDA IN SOUTH.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2010-10-25 01:21  

00:00