|
Slain Qaeda commander remembered by teammates
Former football teammates of Al Qaeda's top commander in Pakistan, killed in a suspected US missile strike, on Monday spoke of the man blamed for attacks that claimed hundreds of lives.Pakistani officials have confirmed that Usama Al Kini ('Usama the Kenyan' in Arabic), a Kenyan national, and his deputy Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were killed on January 1 in South Waziristan near the Afghan border. Security officials said that Al Kini was connected to at least six major attacks in Pakistan, including last year's suicide attacks on the Danish embassy and the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, which killed 60 people. But in the Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa, former teammates remembered Al Kini as a reserved man and a talented footballer. "We played with him in the early 90s to 1996 when he withdrew from public life," said a former teammate in Mombasa. "He was a dedicated religious man and a very good midfielder... Since then, I had not heard of him until I saw his story in the media," his former teammate said. Another former footballer in Mombasa remembered Al Kini as "a reserved boy who did not like mingling a lot with people". He was a...quiet boy. Who liked to blow people up. Al Kini, known in his hometown as Farid Mohammed Msalam, had promising stints as a youth player with Black Panther FC and former league champions Feisal FC. Maybe they'll retire his number? They can't count that high ... Pakistani officials also linked Al Kini to a failed assassination attempt on the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto when she returned to Pakistan in October 2007. The attack killed 139 people. The FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists listing for Al Kini, or Msalam, also listed him as having been indicted over the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people. Posted by: Fred 2009-01-13 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=259745 |