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Arabia
Al-Qaeda paymaster captured
2003-11-27
A little bit more detail on al-Ahdal, who he is, and how he was caught.
Yemen hopes to glean crucial data about al-Qaida operations after catching a senior suspect linked to the 2000 bombing of the warship USS Cole.
I'm starting to wonder precisely how many thousands of people were linked to the Cole bombing. It seems like everybody the Yemenis catch had something to do with it...
Mohammad Hamdi al-Ahdal, also known as Abu Asem al-Makki, was Yemen’s most-wanted man for two years until he was arrested at a house on Tuesday in the capital, Sanaa, along with four other suspected, though junior, members.
Cannon fodder or middle management?
Yemeni officials believe the suspect was the leading distributor of al-Qaida funds and his arrest could expose networks outside Yemen.
I expect that most of the cash is coming in through the northern border, somehow ...
"We will probably get important information about his ties with other elements because he played a leading role and was the main link in distributing funds [to al-Qaida members]," he said.
Probably, if you use the truncheons judiciously.
Yemen’s official Saba news agency said Ahdal was one of the "most prominent leaders of the al-Qaida network" in Yemen. "We received information around three weeks ago that Ahdal was in Sanaa and we started tracing him until we slowly surrounded him by planting intelligence agents in neighbouring houses," another Yemeni government official said.
That was slick...
A US counter-terrorism official called the arrest significant, saying that Ahdal had many contacts in al-Qaida. The official added that Ahdal had significant combat experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in Bosnia in the 1990s, and played a key role in moving al-Qaida money around.
Yummy, sounds like a major player.
Diplomats said the Islamist militant had been protected by powerful tribal leaders in Yemen’s rugged mountain regions.
Gee, that meme sounds suspiciously familiar ...
Yemen’s former No 1 suspect, Ali Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA drone last year. Harthi and his aide, Ahdal, were key suspects in the Cole bombing in Aden harbour which killed 17 sailors.
I thought al-Ahdal was the supremo and al-Harthi the lackey. If that’s not the case, then since Harthi has been replaced by al-Kandahari, that would make al-Ahdal the second highest-ranking al-Qaeda suspect in Yemen. Why can’t these guys just have rank titles and save us all a lot of trouble?
Posted by:Dan Darling

#3  Combat experience in Afghanistan? What the Afghans say about the Arab Jihadis is that they spent theit time being photographed on backgrounds of Afghan mountains and occasionally torturing some hapless Soviet prisoner.

And what westerners say about the Afghans is that they were far too proud to let Arabs fight the Soviets in their place.

Taliban are a different thing since Mullah Omar seems to have looked at Arabians talking classic arabic as something like divine beings.
Posted by: JFM   2003-11-27 5:16:04 PM  

#2  Happy Hour at Giggle Juice Inn?
Posted by: Frank G   2003-11-27 9:20:34 AM  

#1  Dan, I'm in awe. How the hell do you stay on top of this shit. It's all Al this and Duri that.
Posted by: Lucky   2003-11-27 1:34:26 AM  

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