Word: yemenis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Heading the still-secret list of those "top guns" is a Yemeni national named Syafullah, a senior al-Qaeda operative whose trail of terror goes back to involvement in the 1996 bombings of a U.S. military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 servicemen. Syafullah, who intelligence sources say entered Indonesia on a forged U.S. passport, would have provided the critical bombmaking and operational experience needed for a relatively sophisticated operation like the one in Bali, which many experts argue was beyond the capacity of Jemaah Islamiah (JI). His presence would also provide the direct link to al-Qaeda...
...main prey was a man called Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi. Known as Abu Ali, he was, according to Yemeni officials, a former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden's and the local mastermind of the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Aden harbor in October 2000. When an American Predator drone fired its Hellfire missile into al-Harethi's car as it moved along a remote desert road east of Yemen's capital Sana'a, it also killed five other people--all of them al-Qaeda operatives, according to the U.S., one a man Yemen says was a U.S. citizen...
...itself in the war in Afghanistan last year, but the attack in Yemen marked the first known use of the drone to kill a terrorist leader outside an acknowledged field of combat--a tactic human-rights advocates liken to assassination. The strike owed its success to a tip from Yemeni authorities on the whereabouts of al-Harethi, and U.S. officials say Yemen gave its permission for the strike. But the action infuriated opponents of the government, who called it a violation of sovereignty. There may be more to come. U.S. counterterror operatives in Yemen are already hunting their next target...
...previously sent help in the form of equipment and training for Yemeni forces to take on extremists in the tribal areas, but with mixed results. Earlier this year, in raid on a village where al-Harthi and others were seeking shelter, government troops were repelled in a fierce firefight that killed 18 Yemeni soldiers and allowed the al-Qaeda men to escape. This time, when U.S. intelligence got al-Hathi in their sights, they chose to do the job by remote...
...strengthen ties with the West. Recent suspected al-Qaeda operations in Yemen have included attacks on a French oil tanker and a U.S. oil company, underscoring the terrorist threat to Yemen's own economic development. But cooperation with the U.S. has angered local Islamists and prompted attacks on Yemeni security officials, and the al-Harthi assassination may make Yemen's government more of a target for al-Qaeda...