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Just so we’re all on the same page, Abu Yahya al-Libi has an older brother. His name is `Abd al-Wahhab Qayid (Abu Idris). Remember, Abu Yahya al-Libi’s name is Hasan Qaid (transliterated differently in popular media). What makes this story significant, is that Abu Idris is one of the imprisoned senior leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who recently renounced armed violence. And there’s the rub. The guy poised to take over al-Qaida has an older brother who is a senior member of the group that Abu Yahya used to be a member of who is now renouncing...

A bomb exploded outside the U.S. diplomatic mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi overnight, an attack that could be retaliation for the killing, in a U.S. drone strike, of al Qaeda's Libyan second-in-command. An improvised explosive device was dropped from a passing vehicle onto the road outside the mission, in an upmarket area of central Benghazi. It exploded moments after, slightly damaging the building's gate, U.S. and Libyan officials said. Washington had confirmed a few hours before the attack that a U.S.-operated drone had killed Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan-born cleric and senior al Qaeda operative, in Pakistan. The...

On and around September 11, 2012, al Qaeda attacked multiple American assets around the world. The attack that has received the most attention is the deadly attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But the U.S. consulate in Libya was not the only diplomatic facility assaulted by al Qaeda-affiliated groups in September. Terrorists with ties to al Qaeda’s senior leaders, including al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri, were involved in at least three other U.S. embassy sieges in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, and possibly elsewhere. A timeline of these assaults is...

As you'll recall, I was very skeptical this morning of initial US government assertions that there was "no intelligence" indicating the deadly Benghazi raid was premeditated or planned in advance.  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney repeated this heavily-parsed denial at his briefing today (note that he appears to be reading a verbatim statement), only to give a markedly different answer just 45 minutes later:   Carney Contradicts On Whether There Was Advance Warning Of Embassy AttacksABC's Jake Tapper notes that the Defense Secretary briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee on the attack, telling Senators that the US Government believes...

Al-Qaeda released a Sept. 11 anniversary video declaring the United States is at war with Islam and that American Muslims should brace for a “holocaust,” U.S. monitors said Wednesday. The video, which features al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as well as its American spokesman Adam Gadahn, is entitled “Truth has Come and Falsehood has Perished” and was posted on jihadist forums, according to SITE and IntelCenter. According to a SITE transcript, Gadahn rejects President Barack Obama’s assertion that the United States is not at war with Islam because “America is crystal-clear about its opposition to Islam as a political system.” Referring...

The AP reported last week that "U.S. officials from the State Department and White House plan to continue a series of secret meetings with Taliban representatives." The AP report went on to say that "one member of the Taliban negotiating team has been publicly identified as Tayyab Aga [Agha], an emissary of Pakistan-based Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar." But sadly, and ironically, while the Obama administration is desperately reaching out to Mullah Omar, Mr. Omar is strengthening his resolve to kill US troops and to wreak havoc upon Afghanistan. From the Times of India: Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan...

A U.S. official confirmed that a Monday drone strike in Pakistan killed al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi, the most serious blow to the battered terror network since the death of its leader Osama bin Laden. Al-Libi's death, which came on the third consecutive day of CIA drone strikes in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, is a serious knock to what remains of al Qaeda's Pakistan-based core leadership.

Abu Yahya Al-Libi is a rock star in the jihadist world. With his videos and lectures going viral on the Web, he is Al Qaeda's Mr. YouTube. On Monday, the top Al Qaeda operative reportedly was the intended target of the latest U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, strikes that have been increasingly unpopular among Pakistanis but successful in recent years at taking out terrorist leaders. The latest strike reportedly killed eight militants in the tribal region of North Waziristan. U.S. and Pakistani government sources told Reuters that Al-Libi was the intended target, but they could not confirm whether he had...

(CNN) -- SNIPPET: "The charge centers around a one-way ticket that authorities allege Abdel Hameed Shehadeh purchased from Queens, New York, to Islamabad, Pakistan. Shehadeh originally told investigators that the purpose of his trip was to visit an Islamic university and attend a friend's engagement party. But he later admitted to FBI agents in Hawaii that he bought the ticket in order to join a fighting group such as the Taliban, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in New York Monday."

"Abu Yahya al-Libi’s Long, Lonely Journey" SNIPPET: "On 29 April 2010, Abu Yahya al-Libi penned a statement entitled, “Jihad and the Battle of Dubious Claims.” Released in early June, this essay is nothing if not one of his seminal works." SNIPPET: "I’m just not seeing how this essay is going to be rousing jihadists to action any time soon. I see in his writing a man that has been continuously reading, thinking and talking about the steep hill that global jihadist movement must trudge. But I also see a man who is growing frustrated with what he believes to be...

Hi everyone – apologies for the hiatus. I’ve been underwater lately with work and hitting the media circuit so the blog drew the short end of the stick. I’m back in the saddle and have some exciting things in the pipeline that should break soon. While you wait, here’s a long-overdue round-up of my recent antics:

SNIPPET: "Some comments • I have to assume that al-Balawi was thoroughly debriefed by al-Qaida before being sent on this mission, and I'm surprised no one has sought to correlate his "infiltration" of al-Qaida with Abu Yahya al-Libi's book released over the summer: "Guidance on the Ruling of the Muslim Spy" • See also: Al Qaida: Western Spies Multiply "Like Locusts"."

Senior al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders are reported to have met with Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud to advise him to move his group's operations into Afghanistan and halt attacks against the Pakistani state. Several meetings were said to have been held last week after an 11-man delegation of al Qaeda and Taliban heavy hitters arrived in Waziristan to deliver a request from Mullah Omar, the Amir al Mumineen, or the leader of the faithful in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to a report in The Nation. The Taliban dispatched Sirajuddin Haqqani, the powerful military commander of the Haqqani Network,...

The US Department of State has issued multi-million dollar rewards for two senior Taliban leaders and an al Qaeda leader and propagandist. Up to $5 million dollars has been offered "for information leading to the location and/or capture" of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud or Taliban and al Qaeda ally Sirajuddin Haqqani. A $1 million bounty has been offered for information leading to the capture or conviction of al Qaeda propagandist and ideologue Abu Yahya al Libi.

SNIPPET: "According to one of my most trusted sources, the blurry image seen on the tape is indeed Osama bin Laden. One of the reasons that this is convincing is that the blurry image remains in the video. As Sahab, which produces al Qaeda's propaganda, is very selective in the information it releases, and rarely leaves garbage in its videos. As Sahab intentionally leaves in this clip, for reasons unknown. Does al Qaeda want to generate a buzz? Is this a hidden message? Perhaps this is a precursor to a new bin Laden tape?"

SNIPPET: "New Abu Yahya al-Libi video released on 6 OCT – I havent had a chance to blog for awhile so I thought I’d go through the transcript line-by-line, pulling out anything that I find of note, and then annotate as I go through it. One quick note: Abu Yahya is no longer wearing his pinky ring, the one that he’s been wearing since late 2005 – this is the first video that I havent seen it (although it may just be at the shop getting cleaned) – here’s a screen cap:" SNIPPET: "Wow, could I be any more right...

Abu Yahya al-Libi circles back to Algeria today in his new video, “Algeria Between the Sacrifice of Fathers and Faithfulness of Sons.” In short, it seems like a call for direct action to the AQIM guys against Algerian military/government targets and a broader recruiting call to the broader Maghrebi jihadi population.

This morning, Al-Fajr Media launched a new 29-page book by Abu Yahya al-Libi entitled, A Spear to Fight the Government and the Army of Pakistan It’s chalk full of ideo-religious stuff in order to lay a groundwork for overthrowing Islamic regimes, something that most of Islamic history declares a big no-no. This is just one more chapter in the long book of Abu Yahya’s attempt to rewrite Islam from within. It’s his attempt to labotomize the religion and cram it full of Abu Yahya’isms. In my view, ABu Yahya is Machiavellian in his ambition. Few seem to get how scary...

Special Dispatch - No. 2323 April 22, 2009 No. 2323 Al-Qaeda Commander Abu Yahya Al-Libi in New Video: There Is No Difference Between Palestine and Other Jihads – Including Al-Andalus; If Helping the Israelis Is Apostasy, So Is Helping the U.S. In a 59-minute video produced by Al-Sahab, Al-Qaeda's media wing, and posted on jihadist forums on April 22, 2009, senior Al-Qaeda commander Abu Yahya Al-Libi tries to convince Islamist clerics of Al-Qaeda's positions on fighting against the U.S. and against the regimes in Muslim countries.

Excerpt - NEWSWEEK: Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Qaeda No. 2, Has Provoked a Potentially Serious Ideological Split Within Al Qaeda, Jihadists Tell Newsweek NEW YORK, July 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Pakistani and Taliban officials interviewed by Newsweek say the Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri is behind the wave of retaliatory attacks launched after Pakistani troops overran the Red Mosque in Islamabad, which have killed more than 150 people. While Osama bin Laden has been keeping a low profile, Zawahiri has moved aggressively to take operational control of the group. In so doing, Zawahiri has provoked a potentially serious ideological split within Al...