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NY Times: Top Tunisian 'Jihadist' Killed by US Strike in Libya
[ALMANAR.LB] A top Tunisian terrorist and associate of late Al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden... who is now beyond all cares and woe... was killed by a US ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reported. Seifallah Ben Hassine, Tunisia's most wanted Jihadist, who criminal masterminded a campaign of liquidations and terrorist attacks, including one against the United States Embassy in Tunis, was killed mid-June in an Ben Hassine, also known as Abu Ayadh, is believed to have coordinated a string of liquidations, including the killing of famed Afghan anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Masood in 2001. He was one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants and the leader of the outlawed group Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet... h in Tunisia. He had been based in Libya since 2013, according to reports, and ran training camps and a network of bad boy cells across the region. Tunisian officials also accused Ben Hassine of directing the killings of two secular Tunisian politicians in 2013, the paper reported. "His death, if confirmed, would be an important victory for Tunisia in its struggle to contain a persistent insurgency in its western border region and a growing threat to its urban centers," New York Times said. Moreover, Tunisian station Radio Mosaique first reported Ben Hassine's death, which the US paper said it had confirmed with an official in Washington. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential military assessment, said Ben Hassine died in a strike that targeted Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a top Al Qaeda-linked bad boy believed to have criminal masterminded a deadly attack on an Algerian gas plant in 2013. Libya's government reported at the time that Belmokhtar was killed in the attack but Al Qaeda's North Africa branch denied it. Hassine had been on a United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... blacklist since 2002 over his links to al-Qaeda. He was imprisoned in Tunisia in 2003 but released under an amnesty after the ouster of ex-President-for-Life Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ...who departed by popular demand in January, 2011, precipitating the Arab Spring... in 2011. He fought alongside Bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2001 before travelling to Pakistain and then ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... where he was tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... and extradited, the newspaper reported. Posted by: Fred 2015-07-04 |
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