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... Now, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, has released a video boasting about the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and vowing another attack on the scale of 9/11 but even "more painful." The video, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, is titled "A Message to the American People: You Have Yet to Understand the Lesson." It features Ibrahim Al-Qousi, a former prisoner at the U.S. facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Al-Qousi said, regarding the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, that "the greatest loss America suffered, besides its material and human losses, is its reputation...

President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. at his direction has conducted a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen that killed Qassim al-Rimi, an al-Qaida leader who claimed responsibility for last year's deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors. Al-Rimi is a founder of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The affiliate has long been considered the global network’s most dangerous branch for its attempts to carry out attacks on the U.S. mainland. Trump said the U.S. and its allies are safer as a result of his death. “We will continue to protect...

"Elements of the U.S. military are clearly aware that much of what the U.S. is doing in Yemen is aiding AQAP and there is much angst about that," said Michael Horton, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a U.S. analysis group that tracks terrorism. "However, supporting the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against what the U.S. views as Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilizing Yemen," Horton said.

OSAMA Bin Laden’s son has called for an uprising in Saudi Arabia and urged Muslims throughout the Middle East to rebel against their leaders and sever ties with the West. Hamza bin Laden, Osama's son, has called for an uprising in Saudi Arabia It is incumbent upon our people in the Arabian Peninsula to prepare the equipment and materials, and prepare to protect the Two Holy Mosques. In the latest in a series of videos recorded by Hamza bin Laden, son of the former Al-Qaeda mastermind, he exhorted "our dear people in the Arabian Peninsula" to rise up "against the...

Washington (CNN)Several US officials told CNN Thursday that the US is now taking action to locate and monitor hundreds of people or "contacts" found as part the intelligence retrieved during the deadly raid last month in Yemen targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Some of these people are believed to be in the West, but not in the United States. The government is taking action to find and monitor these AQAP-linked individuals because of the threat they may pose to Europe, the officials added. The fact that officials said they are actively pursuing leads uncovered from the raid indicates...

Al-Qaeda accused the United States of withholding necessary medication from "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the deadly 1993 World Trade Center bombing who died behind bars Saturday. They also released a final statement from the sheikh complaining of strip searches that explored his private parts "front and back," claiming that he could be poisoned behind bars and calling for "the most powerful and violent revenge" in the event of his demise. Abdel-Rahman, 78, was serving a life sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Butner, in North Carolina. He had been blinded at a young age by diabetes, and...

On his fifth day in the oval office, President Trump, over dinner with Secretary of Defense Mattis and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was presented with the first of many life-or-death decisions he will be required make. The mission presented to the President for his approval involved a raid on the small, heavily guarded brick home of a senior Qaeda collaborator in a mountainous village in a remote part of central Yemen. Mr. Obama’s national security aides had reviewed the plans but Obama would not approve the mission because the Pentagon wanted to launch the attack on...

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has just published its latest issue of Inspire magazine. It contains some items of particular interest and concern to Westerners: • AQAP is now advising Muslims in the West to target people in their homes. • They suggest using technology to plan home assassinations, such as Google Earth, small drones and cameras. • The magazine contains new detailed instructions on new types of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) inside of books, attached to automobiles with magnets and attached to doors in homes. • AQAP calls on “Knife Revolutionaries” to conduct knife attacks specifically on Americans,...

When Ibrahim al Qosi was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2012, a lawyer for the former Usama bin Laden aide said he looked forward to living a life of peace in his native Sudan. Three years later, Qosi has emerged as a prominent voice of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, appearing in a number of AQAP propaganda videos -- including a 50-minute lecture calling for the takeover of Saudi Arabia. ...

According to a Wednesday night post on the website Long War Journal by Thomas Joscelyn, a former detainee held at Guantanamo Bay named Ibrahim Qosi has rejoined the world of Islamic terrorism and ascended to a leadership post in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) following his release in July 2012. With this shocking story coming as the Obama administration still hopes to close the prison, the question going forward from a media standpoint is this: Will the media show any interest in this threat to national security and failure on the part of the adminstration? According to Joscelyn, Qoosi...

In recent days, pro-al Qaeda jihadists claimed to confirm a recent news report saying that several senior al Qaeda leaders have been released from Iranian custody. Sky News reported earlier this week that five veteran jihadists were released in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who had been kidnapped in Yemen. Several jihadists on Twitter who are connected to al Qaeda have said the report is accurate. One of them is known as “Al Siyasi al Mutaqa’id,” who has relayed accurate information on al Qaeda in the past. The five jihadists who were reportedly freed are: Saif al Adel, Abu Mohammed...

Unseen by most of the world, the once tranquil port of Aden is being steadily infiltrated by jihadists from both al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) and the so-called Islamic State (IS). They are not in charge of the city, the military forces of the UAE are. But in the last few days disturbing reports have emerged of the summary executions of prisoners by the jihadists, along with their black flags hoisted onto public buildings.

The American-born Jihadist cleric Anwar Awlaki likely played an important support role in the September 11 attacks nearly ten years ago, according to a new book that examines the threat of home-grown terrorism. The book, “The Next Wave,” by Fox News national security reporter, Catherine Herridge, reveals new documents that find Mr. Awlaki was nearly arrested after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon for providing false information on his passport application. Today Mr. Awlaki is one of the leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Mr. Awlaki is also the only known American citizen on a...

Interior Minister Prince Nayef of Saudi Arabia and his son, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, have many enemies. For decades, the powerful and unaccountable elder Prince Nayef has “overseen” the Saudi police force; Nayef once boasted that his law enforcement agency solves 100 percent of the kingdom’s annual crimes. Al-Qaeda was quick to take credit for the suicide bombing (according to SITE). After all, it was a major public relations coup. For starters, the royals had been tricked — promised surrender and instead given a Trojan horse. Saudi’s princes pride themselves on having impenetrable personal security systems. Instead,...

[Snip]...But Marie Harf, Queen of Nonsense, insists that the carrier group (carriers never travel alone, by the way, they keep missile frigates, destroyers, Aegis cruisers, tenders, and a few submarines around for security) is only there to “ensure the shipping lanes remain open and safe” — and “not to do anything in terms of those Iranian ships.” Any suggestion to the contrary is “blatantly untrue– so this discreet movement of U.S. assets is for a discreet purpose,” Harf said. To paraphrase what Teddy Roosevelt might say: W.T.F!?

Arab Gulf states announced late Wednesday that they have decided to “repel Houthi aggression” in neighboring Yemen, following a request from the country’s President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. President Hadi, who was forced to flee his presidential complex in Aden earlier in the day, has urged the Gulf states to intervene military in Yemen. In their joint statement Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait said they "decided to repel Houthi militias, al-Qaeda and ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] in the country.” The Gulf states warned that the Houthi coup in Yemen represented a “major threat” to the region’s...

Secret intelligence files held by Yemeni security forces and containing details of American intelligence operations in the country have been looted by Iran-backed militia leaders, exposing names of informants and plans for U.S.-backed counter-terrorism operations, U.S. officials say. U.S. intelligence officials believe additional files were handed directly to Iranian advisors by Yemeni officials who have sided with the Houthi militias that seized control of the capital of Sana last September and later toppled the U.S.-backed president. For American intelligence networks in Yemen, the damage has been severe. Until recently, U.S. forces deployed in Yemen had worked closely with President Abdu...

Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled the country by sea Wednesday on a boat from Aden, as Shiite rebels and their allies advanced on the southern port city where he had taken refuge, captured his defense minister and seized the city’s airport. Hadi’s departure marks a dramatic turn in Yemen’s turmoil and means a decisive collapse of what was left of his rule, which the United States and Gulf allies had hoped could stabilize the chronically chaotic nation and fight al-Qaida’s branch here after the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh. Over the past year, the Shiite...

Remember when the Obama administration cited Yemen as a success story for its counterterrorism strategy? Let’s say that the situation has evolved since Josh Earnest bragged about the outcome of Barack Obama’s Arab Spring strategy of bolstering the local government they wanted after chasing out the previous regime. Shi’ite Houthi terrorists have returned the favor by chasing the US out of its embassy in Sana’a, and now Sunni al-Qaeda terrorists have chased out 100 Special Ops forces from a Yemeni base after seizing a nearby town: A day after suicide bombers attacked a pair of mosques in the Yemeni capital,...

The Justice Department is pressing the State Department to designate Boko Haram, a Nigerian militant group alleged to be responsible for hundreds of deaths, as a "foreign terrorist organization," according to a document obtained by Reuters. Lisa Monaco, head of the Justice Department's national security division, sent a letter in January to State Department counter-terrorism chief Daniel Benjamin requesting that Boko Haram, also known as the "Nigerian Taliban," be put on the list. A Congressional source said that in the last few days, State Department representatives have lobbied Congress to try to stop legislation which would force the administration to...