Posted on 10/30/2010 6:31:24 PM PDT by Saije
The mastermind of the Al Qaeda (AQAP) plot to plant explosive packages aboard US-bound air freighters is identified by DEBKAfile's exclusive counter-terror sources as Ibrahim Hassan Al Asiri, a Saudi Arabian. He is hiding out at the main Al Qaeda fighting base in the Yemeni province of Al Gouf, 140 kilometers south of Sanaa.
Our sources also reveal that Saturday night, Oct. 30, Yemeni president Abdullah Ali Saleh was still refusing to allow Washington to land US special forces in Al Gouf to wipe out the al Qaeda bastion which has so far resisted all the Yemeni army's efforts to root it out. Based there, according to US and Saudi intelligence, is the al Qaeda (AQAP) infrastructure of terror planners and bomb makers who planted the two explosive packages taken off cargo flights bound for Chicago, US, on Friday.
With Yemeni troops falling back against AQAP, US and Saudi forces Saturday stepped up their UAV strikes on the Al Gouf hideouts to keep al Qaeda fighters from escaping to other parts of Yemen. The US drones came from Djibouti and the Saudi pilotless aircraft from Assir just north of Yemen.
Our military sources reveal that US Combined Task Force - CTF 151 has been standing by Yemen's Red Sea coast aboard the Marine amphibious assault ship USS Boxer awaiting the order to land in Al Gouf, while the Marines Expeditionary Unit 26 waits on the USS Iwo Jima, accompanied by additional US warships.
Saudi King Abdullah and senior US and British government officials have been leaning hard on the Yemeni president to allow these forces to land and storm the bastion of al Qaeda's air freight package plotters. Ali Saleh Saturday night still stood by his refusal.
(Excerpt) Read more at debka.com ...
one for each village... see if the message gets through to them...
Since when do we need to ask?
That wound not have stopped Rumsfeld. The Obama crowd are different, they only use politically correct ordnance where there are no reporters from the MSM.
Eric Holder and the Cole bomber: http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3858
Paging Mitch Rapp....Mitch Rapp.. Please pick up the white courtesy phone.
You don't have to ask me twice, I'll go in a heartbeat.
Go easy, this is another Debka story. The USS Boxer is not even in theater. We do have significant assets there already, but not what’s in this story.
It's a bogus story on those accords at least. We wouldn't be waiting for Saleh's permission anyway and have had all kinds of teams in Yemen this year.
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