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Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/01/al_qaedas_operations.php Osama al Kini, also known as Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam. The US killed al Qaeda's chief of operations in the New Year's Day missile strike in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan, according to a report. The Jan. 1 attack in the town of Karikot in South Waziristan killed Osama al Kini and his senior aide Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, intelligence officials told The Washington Post. Two other unnamed operatives were also killed in the airstrike. Osama al Kini's is an alias for Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, a Kenyan national and a senior al Qaeda...

Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen, leading to theories that there may have once been a church in Mecca. A stone carving of a Christian figure was found in Zafar, some 581 miles south of Mecca, and is thought to have been made in the era of the Prophet Muhammad. Paul Yule, an archaeologist from Heidelberg in Germany, has dated the 5feet 7inch tall relief which shows a man with chains of jewellery, curls and spherical eyes to around 530AD. ... The figure is barefoot, which was typical of Coptic saints....

Excerpt - Karachi, 24 Sept. (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - The alleged mastermind of last Saturday's deadly truck bombing of the Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has emerged. The suspect, Qari Zafar (photo), has become part of Al-Qaeda's hardline Takfiri inner circle. He enjoys the protection of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and is believed to be hiding out in the lawless South Waziristan tribal area of North West Frontier Province. Zafar is not only the suspected mastermind of the Marriot bomb blast, but has created a network which will shortly target strategic installations belonging to...