(Rooters) - Yemeni armed forces have killed Said al-Shehri, a Saudi national seen as the second-in-command of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a government website said on Monday."al-Shehri... al-Shehri"... Hmmm... I've heard that name before...
48 hour rule definitely applies to a Yemeni government website, unless they're showing a pic of the severed head...
The Ministry of Defense website said Shehri was killed on Monday, along with six other myrmidons, in what it called a "qualitative operation" by the army in the remote Hadramout
...the formerly independent Qu'aiti state and sultanate, annexed by Communist South Yemen in 1968, encompassing a region along the Gulf of Aden, extending eastwards to the borders of the Dhofar region of Oman. The people are called Hadhramis and speak Hadhrami Arabic. The city Tarimis estimated to contain the highest concentration of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad (PTUI) anywhere in the world, approximately seven in every square yard...
province in eastern Yemen. It gave no further details.
AQAP, which has planned attacks on international targets including airliners, is described by Washington, which has used unmanned drones to target its members, as the most dangerous wing of al Qaeda.
There were conflicting reports on how Shehri, a former inmate of Guantanamo Bay, was killed. Yemen has previously announced Shehri's death only for it to emerge that he is still alive.
A Yemeni security source said Shehri was killed in an operation last Wednesday in the Hadramout which was thought to have been carried out by a U.S. drone, rather than the Yemeni military. The source said another Saudi and an Iraqi national were among the others killed.
Residents of the Wadi al-Ain district where the attack took place last Wednesday said they believed from their contacts with Islamist fighters in the area that Shehri had died then, when missiles struck a house where they were meeting.
"There was a group of people from the Ansar al-Sharia
...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends...
group who were holding a meeting - Shehri was one of them and there were foreigners there too," said Elwi Suleiman. Ansar al-Sharia is one of a number of Yemeni myrmidon groups linked to al Qaeda.
There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy in the accounts.
Shehri was released from the U.S. detention facility to Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
in 2007 and put through a Saudi rehabilitation program for myrmidons. He is wanted by Yemeni authorities for a suspected role in a U.S. embassy attack in 2008.