Sudden death is an occupational hazard for these terrorists...
Posted on 10/21/2009 6:56:22 PM PDT by milwguy
PESHAWAR: In the first drone strikes since the Pakistan military began its operation in South Waziristan a top al-Qaeda operative Abu Al-Masri is reported to have been killed in a strike from a US unmanned aircraft.
However, conflicting reports earlier suggested that Al-Masri may have been killed preparing suicide jackets in the village of Spalga.
Known as Mustafa Al-Yazid, he was urported to have links with Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi, whom US authorities arrested in an alleged plot to use homemade backpack bombs, he served three years in an Egyptian prison, in the 1980s, for supposed links to the group responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
After his release, he was also known as Sheik Said and Abu Saeed al-Masri and became a founding member of the terrorist group.
Abu Masri went into hiding after the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, but resurfaced in May 2007 during a 45-minute interview posted on the web by Al-Sabah.
In August 2008, Pakistani military officials claimed Abu Masri had been killed in fighting in the Bajaur tribal area along the Afghan border. However, he turned up in subsequent al-Qaida videos, all of which had clearly been made after the Bajaur fighting.
Abu Masri appeared on an al-Qaida video posted this month, vowing to avenge the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a CIA missile strike Aug, 6. -DawnNews
This guy was one of the earliest Al Qaeda friends of Dr Zawahri, they went back all the way to when they were in jail in Egypt toether, so it is a big blow to Al Qaeda.
Ping.
A little more backround on Yazid...........NEW YORK (Oct. 14) — The airport shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with al-Qaida that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant believed to be the terrorist group’s leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press.
Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian reputed to be one of the founders of the terrorist network, used a middleman to contact Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi as the 24-year-old man hatched a plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on the city’s mass transit system, the two intelligence officials said.
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“Now is the time we should have every drone and reaper available over the skis of S and N Waziristan.”
I agree but is Obama up to the task? Maybe the Generals on the seen will “ask for permission” later.
Another one bites the dust!
Sweet!
Meanwhile “commander zero” ponders...
Make that seen = scene.
Shoot first, ask O later? Or better yet shoot first, and don’t even bother telling him. Just let weasel zipper post the fun videos on FR for us to watch.
is this Abu Al-Masri different than the Abu Ubaida Al-Masri who was confirmed dead back in April?
Sudden death is an occupational hazard for these terrorists...
If we have killed al-Yazid for the third and last time, it is certainly big news. He is the last of AQ's inner circle from the 80's, he was the money man and was closer to UBL than Z.
Al-Yazid has been a member of al-Qaeda’s shura (ruling council) since the group was formed in 1988. In May 2007, al-Qaeda will release a video naming him as the group’s commander of operations in Afghanistan. He allegedly has played a major role in managing al-Qaeda’s finances since at least the early 1990s, and continues to do so
An Egyptian, al-Yazid served time in jail with Zawahri after the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.
He was named in the 9/11 Commission as the operation’s paymaster
Although thinking of one of our ummanned drone ending this piece of dirt’s life is pleasant enough, it would be extra-nice if his disgusting life was ended with one of his personal-delivery bombs.
He’s a heavyweight in al-Qaida but little known outside jihadi and intelligence circles even though he runs the terrorist movement’s operations in a key front — Afghanistan — and may be linked to a plot in New York.
Mustafa al-Yazid makes no secret of his contempt for the United States, once calling it “the evil empire leading crusades against the Muslims.”
“We have reached the point where we see no difference between the state and the American people,” al-Yazid told Pakistan’s Geo TV in a June 2008 interview. “The United States is a non-Muslim state bent on the destruction of Muslims.”
Al-Yazid may also have links to Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi, whom U.S. authorities have arrested in an alleged plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on New York City’s mass transit system.
Two U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case remains under investigation, told The Associated Press that the bespectacled, Egyptian-born al-Yazid used a middleman to contact Zazi, indicating that the al-Qaida leadership took a keen interest in what U.S. officials call one of the most serious terrorism threats crafted on U.S. soil since the 9/11 attacks.
Despite his relative obscurity in the West, the shadowy, 55-year-old al-Yazid, who barely stands 5-foot-5 inches tall, has been involved with Islamic extremist movements for nearly 30 years since he joined radical student groups led by fellow Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri, now the No. 2 figure in al-Qaida after Osama bin Laden.
In the early 1980s, al-Yazid served three years in an Egyptian prison for purported links to the group responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. After his release, al-Yazid, also known as Sheik Said and Abu Saeed al-Masri, turned up in Afghanistan, where, according to al-Qaida’s propaganda wing Al-Sabah, he became a founding member of the terrorist group.
He later followed bin Laden to Sudan and back to Afghanistan, where he served as al-Qaida’s chief financial officer, managing secret bank accounts in the Persian Gulf that were used to help finance the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.
After the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, al-Yazid went into hiding for years. He surfaced in May 2007 during a 45-minute interview posted on the Web by Al-Sabah, in which he was introduced as the “official in charge” of the terrorist movement’s operations in Afghanistan.
Some security analysts believe the choice of al-Yazid as the Afghan chief may have signaled a new approach for al-Qaida in the country where it once reigned supreme.
Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit that tracked bin Laden, believes that bin Laden and al-Zawahri wanted a trusted figure to handle Afghanistan “while they turn to other aspects of the jihad outside” the country.
Al-Yazid had little background in leading combat operations. But terrorism experts say his advantage was that he was close to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. As a fluent Pashto speaker known for impeccable manners, al-Yazid enjoyed better relations with the Afghans than many of the al-Qaida Arabs, whom the Afghans found arrogant and abrasive.
That suggested a conscious decision by al-Qaida to embed within the Taliban organization, helping the Afghan allies with expertise and training while at the same time putting an Afghan face on the war.
Al-Yazid himself alluded to such an approach in an interview this year with Al-Jazeera television’s Islamabad correspondent Ahmad Zaidan. Al-Yazid said al-Qaida fighters were involved at every level with the Taliban.
“We participate with our brothers in the Islamic Emirate in all fields,” al-Yazid said. “This had a big positive effect on the (Taliban) self-esteem in Afghanistan.”
A September 2007 al-Qaida video sought to promote the notion of close Taliban-al-Qaida ties at a time when the Afghan insurgents were launching their comeback six years after their ouster from power in Kabul.
The video showed al-Yazid sitting with a senior Taliban commander in a field surrounded by trees as a jihad anthem played — rather than in a bleak desert hideout. The Taliban commander vowed to “target the infidels in Afghanistan and outside Afghanistan” and to “focus our attacks, Allah willing, on the coalition forces in Afghanistan.”
There is also evidence that al-Yazid has promoted ties with Islamic extremist groups in Central Asia and Pakistan, where other top al-Qaida figures are believed to be hiding.
“He definitely seems to have significant influence among the Pakistani Taliban and the Central Asian groups,” terrorism expert Evan Kohlman said. “They regularly post and share his videos on the Web, just as they would with bin Laden or al-Zawahri.”
In August 2008, Pakistani military officials claimed al-Yazid had been killed in fighting in the Bajaur tribal area along the Afghan border. However, he turned up in subsequent al-Qaida videos, all of which had clearly been made after the Bajaur fighting.
Al-Yazid appeared on an al-Qaida video posted this month, vowing to avenge the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a CIA missile strike Aug, 6.
“I say to the Islamic nation that even if we have lost Baitullah Mehsud, there are thousands of tribesmen who are like him and who will take revenge on the Americans and their allies,” al-Yazid said.
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“I say to the Islamic nation that even if we have lost Baitullah Mehsud, there are thousands of tribesmen who are like him and who will take revenge on the Americans and their allies,” al-Yazid said.
I guess there is one less of the thousands of tribesmen who are going to be able to take revenge on us. I also would be pleased if the suicide vests he was making blew him into little bits. I am sure OBL and Dr Zawahri are feeling a little less safe tonight if it was a drone who took him out.
I’ll take the victory from any source.
:-)
I wonder who gave the order and what the reaction was in the White House. Sounds like somebody in the Pentagon is doing his job, regardless of what B. Hussein says.
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