U.S.-trained Saudi forces kill six in latest raid on Al Qaida

World Tribune ^ | July 29, 2003 | World Tribune

[FairOpinion]

ABU DHABI — Saudi Arabia has intensified its offensive against Al Qaida.

On Monday, Saudi forces staged two raids of suspected Al Qaida strongholds in the northern province of Qassim. At least six Al Qaida suspects and two Saudi officers were killed and nine others were injured.

Saudi forces were said to have been trained and directed by the United States. A unit of Northrop Grumman has been training Saudi National Guards, who are said to have been participating in the offensive.

The first raid was conducted by the Special Emergency Forces on a farm in Gadhi. Officials said Saudi forces came under a hail of automatic fire and grenades and casualties were reported, Middle East Newsline reported.

Hours later, Saudi forces stormed another suspected Al Qaida stronghold in Qassim. Officials said the Saudi unit came under automatic fire.

Saudi officials said security forces and intelligence agencies have focused the battle against Al Qaida in the northern portion of the kingdom.

They said many of the Al Qaida insurgents have been moving from Iraq into the kingdom over the last year.

[On Tuesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal was expected to meet President George Bush in Washington. U.S. officials said Saud arrived in the United States in an effort to bolster relations with Washington in the wake of a heavily-censored congressional report said to have accused Riyad of having been involved in the Al Qaida attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.]

The kingdom has captured about 250 suspected Al Qaida insurgents over the past month. Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz said most of the detainees had received training in Al Qaida camps in Afghanistan.

But officials said some of those killed or captured in the raids on Monday included 10 Al Qaida fugitives being sought since May. They said the kingdom has already captured nine of the Al Qaida members, deemed as the leading insurgents of the Al Qaida network in Saudi Arabia.

"The Saudi security services are in the process of identifying [the suspected insurgents]," Nayef said. "But they are Saudis and they are connected to Al Qaida."

[FairOpinion]

I think the main news here is that there is much more going on behind the scenes with Saudi Arabia, and as usual, Bush is justified in not declassifying the information, that the Democrats wanted him to declassfy, I guess, hoping to foil our current operations against the terrorists in Saudi, more to blame on Bush.

I am beginning to think that we can deal with the terrorists and nations supporting them, but that the Democrats are the worst enemies of the American people.

[vp_cal]

i was watching a documentary on how Nixon believed
that some members of the Democratic Party were communist sympathizers and trying to sabotage the country. This is why they broke into the office- to get evidence that there was communist sympathy. The point of view of the documentary was that he was nuts.

[FairOpinion]

Ann Coulter in her book "Treason" tells the truth about the Democrats, and I think she only hit the tip of the iceberg.

[kimosabe31]

I'm not sure this proves anything. The Saudi's are still responsible for financing 100's and possibly 1000's wahabbi schools across the US. According to non-muslim middle eastern sources, there are about 60 in the SF Bay area alone.

[FairOpinion]

What this shows that Bush knows what he is doing. He has a tough job, he needs to turn some countries around with diplomacy and "carrot and stick" approach, others, which are not amenable to it, need to have a regime change, we need to use force.

Pakistan also used to be a major supporter of terrorism, the Pakistani intelligence created the Taliban and probably ran Afghanistan, but Bush managed to get Musharreff to see the light, and now they have turned around completely. I am sure the Saudis, after seeing how we took over Iraq in weeks, are suitably impressed, and are changing their ways. There is a faction which is pro-West, and Bush is supporting them, so then, they in turn can crack down on the radical Wahabis.

[vbmoneyspender]

They said many of the Al Qaida insurgents have been moving from Iraq into the kingdom over the last year.

I thought Al Qaeda had no connection with Iraq. Hardee, har, har.

On a related note, I saw David Corn on Brit Hume's show the other day deny that there was an Al Qaeda connection with Iraq that justified our going to war against Hussein. But not two minutes later when Brit was questioning how things were going in Iraq, Corn said that Iraq was turning into a quagmire (no surprise there) and that part of the problem was that we were being attacked in guerrilla fashion by Baathists and (get this) members of Al Qaeda. Oh well, I guess it is too much to ask for people who would like to see the Iraqis remain in a state of terror-bondage to make a consistent argument in favor of doing nothing.

[FairOpinion]

The media also totally ignores the Salman Pak terrorist training camp near Baghdad, which may have a direct link to the 9-11 hijackings.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/salman_pak.htm

Former Iraqi military officers have described a highly secret terrorist training facility at Salman Pak, where both Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabs receive training on hijacking planes and trains, planting explosives in cities, sabotage, and assassinations.

Training activities including simulated hijackings carried out in an airplane fuselage [said to be a Boeing 707] at the camp. The camp is divided into distinct sections. On one side of the camp young, Iraqis who were members of Fedayeen Saddam are trained in espionage, assassination techniques and sabotage. The Islamic militants trained on the other side of the camp, in an area separated by a small lake, trees and barbed wire. The militants reportedly spent time training, usually in groups of five or six, around the fuselage of the airplane. There were rarely more than 40 or 50 Islamic radicals in the camp at one time.

[Coop]

I'm not sure this proves anything.

It's not about proving anything. There are six less Al Qaeda terrorists plotting to kill your family and mine.

[Coop]

New name on my scorecard, compliments of Mr. Atef's files (Source: FoxNews website, 31 July):

Separately, the FBI also said that it is reissuing a "Be On The Lookout" advisory for suspected terrorist Abderraouf Jdey, who is to be "considered extremely dangerous."

In January, Jdey was identified as one of five individuals depicted on videotapes recovered from the destroyed residence of Usama bin Laden's military chief, Muhammad Atef. Officials say Atef was killed by a U.S. airstrike in November.

Attorney General John Ashcroft then identified Jdey, who also goes by the name Al Rauf Bin Al Habib Bin Yousef Al-Jiddi, as a 36-year-old Canadian citizen born in Tunisia.

The videos depict the individuals, including Jdey, apparently stating their "last will" and their intent to become martyrs, according to the FBI. One of the men was shown cradling a rifle and another, hailing from Yemen, was suspected of being intended for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The other four men in the video were identified as Abd Al-Rahim, Muhammad Sa'id Ali Hasan, Khalid Ibn Muhammad Al-Juhani and Ramzi Binalshibh.

Of these last four, by my count Rahim, Hasan and Binalshibh are captured, and Al-Juhani was killed in or shortly after the Saudi Arabia May attacks. Do you concur?

[Solson]

Pakistan has not completely turned. While Musharraf is no longer outwardly supporting the Taliban and is working with the US, many of the folks in his government and security forces are still supporters and members of the Taliban. He's doing well on the macro level but Musharraf needs to gain control on a micro level. IT is the main reason bin Laden is still running around...holes in the security forces of Pakistan...

[Dog]

Al-Juhani was killed in or shortly after the Saudi Arabia May attacks.

I think he is still alive.

[Angelus Errare]

The media ignores Salman Pak for much the same reason that it ignores the fact that you can win a low-level guerrilla war the way we did in Germany after World War 2 or the way the Turks did against the PKK in the mid-1990s: it would take some research and it would detract from the whole idea the anti-Bush agenda that has thoroughly dominated the media ever since the war in Iraq ended.

Abu Zubair al-Haili, for example, was one of al-Qaeda's top recruiters and was involved in a plot to attack US and British warships in Gibraltar. He trained at Salman Pak and has evidently told as much to US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. But you'll have to do some deep digging to learn that little fact.

As far as the Saudis go, I think what's happening in Saudi Arabia is that the security forces (which are loyal to Crown Prince Abdullah) have come to the conclusion that al-Qaeda may well be targeting members of House Saud itself these days. Remember, the explosives for the Riyadh bombings came directly from the Saudi National Guard (which protects the princes) armory and if al-Qaeda can get ahold of those, then they can go after the princes themselves. I suspect that bin Laden's recent statement that House Saud would pay if his allies in MIRA were right about his clerics being dead also has something to do with the Saudi willingness to stage a crackdown.

As far as the videos the FBI found at Mohammed Atef's old house, here they are:

http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/terseekinfomartyr.htm

We have: (spelling correctly to correspond with general principles for Romanizing Arabic names)

Abd al-Rahim
Mohammed Said Ali Hassan
Khalid ibn Mohammed al-Jehani
Ramzi Binalshibh
al-Rauf bin al-Habib bin Yousef al-Jiddi
Faqir Boussora

Now, if Abd al-Rahim = Abd Rahim al-Nashiri, then we have him in custody, I'd have to compare the photos to be certain. If not, he's still on the loose.

Ramzi Binalshibh was captured with Tawfiq Attash Khallad's brother by US and Pakistani authorities on 9/11/02.

I don't recall seeing any information on the capture of Mohammed Said Ali Hassan off-hand.

Khalid ibn Mohammed al-Jehani was originally listed as being the mastermind on the scene for the Riyadh bombings, then he went to being one of the suicide bombers, but now he's still at large. I dunno if he was resurrected or what, but such is information in Saudi Arabia.

[Coop]

Now, if Abd al-Rahim = Abd Rahim al-Nashiri, then we have him in custody, I'd have to compare the photos to be certain. If not, he's still on the loose.

Agreed. Forgot to mention that was my assumption.

[Angelus Errare]

Well here is al-Nashiri:

http://www.efreedomnews.com/images/Terrorists/Abd_al-Rahim_al-Nashiri.jpg

Here is Abd al-Rahim:

http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/3.jpg

http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/al-rahimalt.jpg

I dunno, it looks like the first photo has a bit of a bigger chin than the FBI photos.

[Coop]

Yeah, I did some digging around and found al-Jehani both dead and at large. That's not easy to do.

Hasan may not be the same guy, as I originally thought. I have Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad as being arrested in Germany in Jan. He's listed as being 54 years old. The ugly dude in your link - Mohammad Said ali Hasan - looks younger. Probably different terrorists.

And your two photos don't look like the same guy, although al-Nashiri's photo does remind me of al-Ghamdi's photo splashed everywhere when he surrendered.

[Dog]

I have this feeling al-Jehani wasn't cannon fodder. That video of him and the others seems to be a who's who of Al Qaeda leadership.

[Dog]

I heard today this warning about the hijackings came from al-Ghamdi seems he is in Gitmo and talking.

[Angelus Errare]

I think that the videotapes that Mohammed Atef (remember, he was al-Qaeda's top military commander) were basically a way for him to review prospective members he had selected to join the organization's "officer corps." Essentially, these were the guys who would pick up the mantle even if the entire Shura Majlis (al-Qaeda's board of directors) was killed by the US.

As for the latest in the long line of psychopathic al-Ghamdis:

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/07/30/airline.warning.intl/

He does indeed appear to be a Guantanamo, so he's not too likely to be released from custody again. Interesting that the Saudis handed him over when they won't cough up al-Bayyoumi.