Senior Al Qaeda leader killed via Predator Drone (Now With Link!)

[Roland99]

No link yet. Being reported on TV now.

Pakistani officials ok'd the hit.

al-Yemini is the "leader".


CIA Predator aircraft had been tracking al-Yemini for some time.

Only the 4th known time a Predator has opened fire on Al Qaeda suspects.


Officials had hoped al-Yemini would lead U.S. to bin Laden. The decision was made this week to kill him as it was feared he was going to go into hiding.



(uh....yeah....right.)





***Now with 100% more linkage!***

Exclusive: CIA Aircraft Kills Terrorist
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=755961

May 13, 2005 — A senior al Qaeda operative was killed by a missile fired from a CIA Predator aircraft on the Pakistani side of the remote area near the Afghan border earlier this week, U.S. intelligence officials told ABC News.

The CIA refused to confirm or deny any operational matter.

Haitham al-Yemeni, a native of Yemen known for his bomb-making skills, had been tracked for some time in the hope that he would help lead the United States to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, intelligence officials said. But with the recent capture in northwest Pakistan of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, thought to be al Qaeda's No. 3 man, officials worried al-Yemeni would soon go into hiding, and decided to take action.

Al-Yemeni was in line to replace al-Libbi, intelligence analysts said.

Oh this is getting GOOD! He was the *assistant* coffee maker and photocopy guy!!

:rofl:

[eleny]

1. Wait - let me guess...

....He was their #3 guy?

[Rick Myers]

4. And "high-ranking..."

Death by remote control. Welcome to the Playstation War!

[bennywhale]

34. The implications of this technology are frightening. Once

they are developed and extensive enough, combined with those "robot" type soldiers. Unmanned army equipment being sent to war is dangerous as there are no political consequences for engaging with a country militarily.

No chance of body bags, the decision to invade, destroy, whatever, is easier to make.

I can picture a scenario in the future where a low level war, or even a regime toppling could be carried out with complete impunity and no risk to any soldiers life. I can imagine it being barely covered by any media due to lack of humans there and thus no interest. I can imagine it being carried out almost as a backround story, with no-one really aware of it.

Its frightening

[Roland99]

36. Droids, anyone?

Attack of the Clones

[erpowers]

23. Not Exactly

He had not been promoted yet, but he was going to be promoted to the #3 position. So what made you guess he was the #3 guy?

[bunny planet]

35. #3 1/2 guy.

They caught the fifth number 3 last week.

The real #3 guy we were after is Mullah Omar. I hear they tried to cut a deal with him this week.

I love it when the blivet administration trys to convince us they are really catching the evil doing terra folks, smokin' them out of their caves.

[americanstranger]

37. #3 Al Qaeda Guy = 5th Beatle.

Three's a very popular number among Al-Q, I guess. :)

-as

[Steel City Slim]

2. Ummmm

Haven't we heard this before?

[jean]

3. let's pray it wasn't actually an innocent wedding party

[Parche]

5. al yemini

into hiding??

where into another cave....the batcave.....

he is the leader of #2 and 3?

[many a good man]

6. Imagine how many AQs we coulda' picked off by now if Iraq didn't distract

AQ. You know, the guys that actually hit us. The real central battleground in the war against Terror.

**'s greatest strength is fighting the war on terra?????

[ninty]

7. Al Qaeda doesn't exist

[Straight Shooter]

17. Well, it exists kind of like an oil spill exists.

It has no real form or substance, and as soon as you get one part of it, the rest of it in that same location temporarily disperses, only to regroup in another location.

[TahitiNut]

24. Sure they do. They have membership cards, secret handshakes, org charts,

... articles of incorporation in several countries, and issue annual reports and periodic press releases. After all, how could our glorius leaders know more about their internal affairs than they knew about Enron if al Qaeda didn't have all these things? Huh? Huh? :sarcasm:

[many a good man]

25. central battleground in the GWOT

First the commies stopped existing now Al Qaeda. What are we going to tell the American people???

[Al-CIAda]

19. the guys that actually hit us.

The guys that hit us reside in the WH.

[jobycom]

8. Didn't they use a Predator to kill that tall farmer and his two sons

on the off chance that they were Usama, back a few years ago?

[NNN0LHI]

11. Last I heard they were checking his DNA. That was several years ago

No follow up since.

Don

[0007]

9. Yawn! Edgads who writes these bullshit stories? Is this to

justify the $50 B that we're coughing up today?

[Bridget Burke]

10. So--where are the stories identifying him ......

As a "Senior Al Qaeda leader" while he was still alive?

Or will the mangled body of some poor goat-herder be produced to show that we're winning the war on terrorism?

[frylock]

14. exactly..

a quick Google of al-Yemini turns up jack krap. There is an Husam al Yemeni, member of Al Ansar, and alleged aide to the allusive Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi. However, this guy was supposedly captured in January.

http://www.trackingthethreat.com/content/entities/ent1579.htm

[daleo]

12. Probably an accidental missile launch

Whoops, I guess that guy's the new number 3.

[bluestateguy]

13. Next week we'll find out more about this "Senior Al Qaeda leader"

that the "senior leader's" job was making coffee for the sucide bombers.

[frylock]

15. he brought in doughnuts every friday morning..

religiously.

[hatrack]

16. And now there will be no more terrorism!

Really! Honest! The Bush Administration wouldn't lie about something like this!

[DrZeeLit]

43. Because Freedom is on the March, and... they HATE to march....

something about their feet or... you know... those Al Kitey guys got no rhythm! You never see 'em playin' basketball, do you?

[frylock]

18. is that the correct spelling?

all I could dig up was this, and they allegedly captured him in January.

Fresh arrests of al-Qaeda members in Iraq support the claim that the terrorist group is attempting to stir up even more trouble in the U.S.-occupied country. Hasan Ghul was captured on Friday by Kurdish forces in Northern Iraq after they were tipped off by the CIA, a U.S. official said. He is now in U.S. custody. Ghul is a "big al-Qaeda facilitator-operator," says the official. He's pegged as ranking in the top 20 of the group's hierarchy. The U.S. official continues: "He?s very high up in the al-Qaeda food chain ... He was just coming into the country, we think probably to foment trouble—but he didn?t quite get the opportunity. The Kurds got him and turned him over us."

Also captured was Husam al Yemeni, whom a U.S. official in Iraq says was supplying money to the anti-American resistance and commanding attacks against coalition forces. Yemeni, says another U.S. intelligence source, is "an al-Ansar guy" and an aide to Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Ansar is the homegrown Iraqi terror group and Zarqawi allegedly ran its operations in northern Iraq before the American forces battered its operatives during the war — though many Ansar terrorists escaped U.S. forces and later dispersed in Iraq. Intelligence sources believe that since then, Zarqawi has re-emerged in Iraq to lead forces allied to al-Qaeda in the armed resistance to the U.S. occupation. Al-Yemeni, says one source, is a "senior guy," someone with the capacity to "make stuff happen, a planner. He wasn?t conducting attacks himself, probably, but he was helping mastermind them."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,582272,00.html

[Bridget Burke]

21. The "correct" spelling is in Arabic!

There are several different systems for transliterating Arabic to the Roman alphabet. Rather confusing.

[Dover]

32. ....no it's Yemeni Cricket

A new fantasy character from the White House's Disney wing.

Lol!.... Remember the purported drone killing that carload of purported "al quaeda leaders" in the desert (somewhere in the Middle East) over a year ago? All we saw was an obliterated car. Never showed any bodies so we just have to 'trust' them.....lol! Phantom killings.....bwaaaaaaaaaaa!

Funny how these guys never get captured alive or taken to court.

[erpowers]

20. Mistaken Identity

I wonder if this is another case on mistaken identity. I watched the story on ABC World News Tonight and was upset that the host said this was second high ranking official that had been targeted. Even if this turns out to be right it is not the second in that there in now some question as to whether Al-Libbi is actually who the Pentagon thought he was. Does anyone think this will become a new trend so that there will be no way to prove that the person who is claimed to have been targeted in not the right person?

[CJCRANE]

30. Nicknames.

"Al Yemeni" just means "the Yemeni" (i.e. someone from Yemen), seems more like a nickname than a real surname or tribal name.

[Betsy Ross]

22. This isn't Wednesday.

How could they release this story so close to the weekend when there is little news coverage? Are they slipping or is it something more sinister?

[Pithy Cherub]

26. Now serving our 4398 senior AQ leader who was slated at the #3 spot.

To paraphrase Helen Thomas is there anyone who wants to be credible about anything in this administration anymore? :shrug:

Hello, anybody, knock knock, anybody home at 1600, hellllooooooooo...

[Roland99]

27. Kick for update with ABC News link (in the OP)

You're gonna live this one, folks!!

[ECH1969]

28. And, yet you notice how

The top three terrorists Zawaharii, Bin Laden, and Zarqawi never seem to be captured or killed. They just keep trying to serve up the head of achmed al-whatever. No body in the public knows this guys name, none of them will know where he stood in al-Qaeda. But, they do know the top three names... well no... they only know two names Zarqawi and Zawaherii have kind of merged to the public. I was laughing my ass off when Tim Russert on Meet the Press said Aymen al-Zarqawi.

There is a point to all of this.

[Chicago Democrat]

29. I believe they killed someone...

Gotta test them new fun toys.

[ckramer]

31. Yeah, predator drone killed Bin Laden before too :rolleyes:

yet he is still alive to help Bush won the election...

[tabasco]

33. ?????.....Who will be the first media whore .......??????......

to utter the phrase: "this guy was really more important than Bin Laden himself!" ??????



edit typo dammit

[The_Casual_Observer]

38. to replace al-Libbi - wasn't that the guy who wasn't the guy or something?

Predator drone my ass. The only real news is the talk about the war crimes investigation.

[librechik]

39. Flushed in the Friday night News Dump

why do they want this story buried?

[OnionPatch]

40. At the rate they keep "catching" these guys

All the top Al Qaeda should be gone by now, eh?

Anyone wanna do a pool as to when they find out he wasn't who they thought he was?

[Judi Lynn]

41. US drone plane kills Al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan: report

US drone plane kills Al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan: report



WASHINGTON, May 13 (AFP) - An Al-Qaeda leader from Yemen was killed this week by a missile fired by an unmanned CIA Predator plane in a mountain region of Pakistan close to the border with Afghanistan, US media reported Friday.

Haitham al-Yemeni had been under surveillance by the US Central Intelligence Agency as it sought information in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, ABC and NBC televisions said.

After the recent capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi in Pakistan, al-Yemeni was considered Al-Qaeda's number three leader, the report said.

NBC said the killing of Al-Yemeni was thought to be linked to the capture of al-Libbi, but gave no details. According to ABC, the United States acted because officials believed the Yemen militant was about to go into hiding.
(snip)

http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=3732

[ClintonTyree]

42. Already denied by Pakistani authorities....

lies, lies and more lies. It's what the bush administration is all about!

[snippy]

44. Anyone know whether this is the first time we have killed this guy?

[Roland99]

45. Oh! That's a GREAT pic!

[stickdog]

46. It's just like "The Prisoner" except instead of getting a new number 2

every other episode, it's a new number 3.