Top al Qaeda leader in custody

Reuters | 3/04/04

[kattracks]

SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni government official has confirmed that security forces have arrested a top al Qaeda operative, adding that he had survived a 2002 CIA attempt to kill him. On Wednesday, Yemeni security forces arrested a man believed to be a local leader of Osama bin Laden's network during a raid on suspected militant hideouts in a remote mountainous region.

The official named the detainee as Abdul Raouf Nassib, also known as Abu Mihjim, and said he was a henchman of al Qaeda's Yemen leader Mohammed al-Ahdal, who was arrested last year.

He said Nassib was with top Yemeni Qaeda suspect Ali Qaed al-Harithi when he was killed by an unmanned CIA plane in Yemen about two years ago.

The official also charge Nassib with masterminding the 2003 jail break by al Qaeda suspects accused of involvement in an attack on the U.S. warship Cole.

Yemen has been battling militants since the September 2001 attacks on U.S. cities focused attention on extremists in the impoverished country at the tip of the Arabian peninsula.

Yemen is the ancestral home of bin Laden, whose al Qaeda group is seen as responsible for the attacks and has threatened more against the United States.

[Miss Marple]

FYI

[Cap Huff]

Thanks for this post kattracks. Some encouraging information here.

[Flyer]

I wonder if Yemen is getting the hint that we are serious?

[Miss Marple]

I would say they got that idea when we turned those four guys in a car into a grease spot, courtesy of a Predator.

[Just mythoughts]

The article doesn't say, I sure hope the "security forces" mention is of the US kind.

[Dog]

Thanks for the ping.

[kattracks]

Here;s the AP story:

Yemen says al-Qaida member is arrested

By AHMED AL-HAJ
The Associated Press
3/4/2004, 2:54 a.m. ET

ABYAN, Yemen (AP) — Security forces have arrested a leading al-Qaida member in their pursuit of militants in the south Yemeni mountains, security officials said Thursday.

Abdul Raouf Naseeb was one of more than a dozen militants captured Wednesday night in a security force operation in the mountains of Abyan province, 292 miles south of the capital San'a, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Naseeb was sought by Yemeni police and U.S. officials and is believed to have survived the November 2002 attack by a CIA-operated drone that killed al-Qaida's chief agent in Yemen, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, said the officials. At the time of the attack, Yemeni officials did not say that any al-Qaida operatives had survived.

Naseeb allegedly planned the breakout of 10 militants who escaped from an Aden prison in April 2003, the officials added. The militants had been detained in connection with the suicide attack of the destroyer USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 American sailors.

Security forces with tanks and helicopters surrounded a group of militants in the mountains late Wednesday. On Thursday, officials told reporters that the area had been cordoned off and the security forces were giving the militants a chance to surrender.

The crackdown came amid reports of planned attacks in Yemen. Security has been noticeably tightened in the capital, San'a, around embassies, foreign companies and government institutions.

On Wednesday, the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported that Sayed Imam el-Sharif, a leading member of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, had been arrested in Yemen. Yemeni officials did not confirm the arrest Thursday.

El-Sharif, founder of the Islamic Jihad, moved to Yemen in 1996 and turned over control of the group to Ayman al-Zawahri, now al-Qaida's No. 2 leader.

Officials say the security forces are searching for Yemeni and Arab fighters, mainly Egyptians and Saudis, who took refuge in Yemen after fighting in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden in the 1980s.

Yemen has allied itself with the U.S. war on terrorism, allowing American forces to enter the country and train its military. The country, which long has tolerated Muslim extremists, is the ancestral homeland of bin Laden.

[jigsaw]

Gosh, I hope this scum wasn't hurt in any way when he was arrested,
for instance that his handcuffs weren't fur-lined and his lawyer wasn't
present. Otherwise John Kerry might get upset.

After all, Be Nice To Terrorists And They'll Be Nice To You. © The Kerry Kampaign (2004)

[evad]

More bad news for the RATs and YES..
'he' is deeply saddened ;-)

[Boot Hill]

"A Yemeni government official has confirmed that security forces have arrested a top al Qaeda operative..."

Al-Qa'ida TOP operative, who's kidding who???

Names/Aliases		Google Results
Abdul Raouf Nassib	----	Zero Hits
Abu Mihjim	----	Zero Hits
Abdul Raouf Naseeb	----	Zero Hits

When are these bozo's going to get with the program, unless you can be found in a Google search, you ain't "top" of nothing!

--Boot Hill

[ThirstyMan]

The official named the detainee as Abdul Raouf Nassib, also known as Abu Mihjim,

What's going on with these guys? How many names do they get? Are they born with aliases?

[ThirstyMan]

The official named the detainee as Abdul Raouf Nassib, also known as Abu Mihjim,

Abdul Raouf Naseeb was one of more than a dozen militants captured Wednesday night

Oh! And they get to spell their names multiple ways as well.

[ASA Vet]

unless you can be found in a Google search

Try googling

"Boot Hill" Freerepublic

You're there.

[far sider]

Yemen officials:

"We are not the enemy of the United States. We are the anagram of the enemy of the United States."

John Stewart, The Daily Show

[Cap Huff]

As soon as I got a name I tried googling. Obviously I came up with the same "results."

The only thing that tells me that he may possibly be more than suicide bomb material is that he is said here to have been with Ali Qaed al-Harithi when he was taken out. The only thing is that the only information we have about that is from this very same story.

[Coop]

I don't have any info on the fella either, but I took the comment to mean he's a main player in Yemen, not globally.

Vest wearer or CEO, I don't care. Another terrorist that can no longer hurt or kill innocents. Let's pray this leads to more captures and kills. [fingers crossed]

[Ranger]

Is it me or are there nearly no similar arrests coming out of Egypt in recent memory?

[Cap Huff]

OK, here's the AFP story. I didn't make a detailed comparison, but I think there may be some additional details:

Top Al-Qaeda leader caught in siege of Islamist hardliners in Yemen

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/73879/1/.html



ADEN, Yemen : Security forces have captured a top Al-Qaeda leader in Yemen during an ongoing siege of dozens of Islamic extremists holed up in the remote mountains of the southern province of Abyan.

"Abdul Rauf Nassib was among 12 Islamists arrested on Wednesday," a regional security official told AFP. They were hiding out with dozens more men in the Jebel Thira area above the town of Lawder.

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"A senior official of Al-Qaeda in Yemen who was wanted by the police was arrested Wednesday night," another official confirmed.

Islamist sources named Nassib as one of the most senior Al-Qaeda officials in the Arabian peninsular republic, and the sole survivor of a missile attack launched from a US drone aircraft that killed six suspected Al-Qaeda men in Maarib province of eastern Yemen on November 3, 2002.

Among the dead from the CIA-planned raid was Qaed Salem Sunian al-Harthi, suspected of organising a suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in the southern port city of Aden that killed 17 American sailors in October 2000.

Security forces backed by helicopters, tanks and armoured vehicles were deployed Wednesday in Abyan where they surrounded a hideout of a large number of suspected Islamic extremists.

They were alerted after the Islamists, from Yemen, Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, had gathered in the Lawder region, 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of Saana and 150 kilometres (90 miles) northeast of Aden.

The fugitives were facing a 48-hour ultimatum that expires on Friday "to surrender unconditionally or face a military assault", according to the main Yemeni opposition party, Al-Islah.

"They are outlaws, and include more than five armed men who between them seized 45 million riyals (250,000 dollars) after attacking a local accountant," a local official said.

"An Egyptian, Imam Sherif, wanted by the Egyptian authorities, is among those surrounded," he added.

The Islamist party's website (www.alsahwa-yemen.net ) said two men had surrendered overnight out of 150-200 people under siege at the hideout.

Nassib was also wanted for aiding 10 men escape from jail at Aden where they had been detained over the bombing of the USS Cole, the website said.

Among those who broke out, local authorities said, was Jamal Badawi, another of the main perpetrators of the suicide attack.

On Sunday, an official in Sanaa told AFP that two members of Yemen's Islamic Jihad had been arrested after a shoot-out in Abyan, while police were searching for three escaped gunmen.

Yemen's Islamic Jihad is suspected of links with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror network.

In November, President Ali Abdullah Saleh freed or pardoned several dozen men suspected of Al-Qaeda links, including Khaled Abdennabi, who had turned himself in and heads both the Jihad group and the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of bin Laden, has been under pressure from Washington since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States to crack down on Al-Qaeda militants.

- AFP

[xzins]

Imo, this should read "mid-level al-qaida leader" in custody.

I saw "top" and thought, mullah omar, al zawaqiri....someone like that. Assoc. Press needs to take greater care in their titles.