[herekitty]

We kill and/or capture an "al-qaida leader" so frequently that I've decided to start a thread for all of them. I'm sure I wanted to do this before but I don't think I ever got around to it.

US military kills al-Qaida leader - Yahoo! News

By PATRICK QUINN, Associate Press Writer Sun Mar 2, 6:24 PM ET

BAGHDAD - A U.S. military helicopter fired a guided missile to kill a wanted al-Qaida in Iraq leader from Saudi Arabia who was responsible for the bombing deaths of five American soldiers, a spokesman said Sunday.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said Jar Allah, also known as Abu Yasir al-Saudi, and another Saudi known only as Hamdan, were both killed Wednesday in Mosul.

According to the military, al-Saudi conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a Jan. 28 bomb attack that killed the five U.S. soldiers.

In that attack, insurgents blasted a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb and showered survivors with gunfire from a mosque. The soldiers died in the explosion, the deadliest on American forces since six soldiers perished Jan. 9 in a booby-trapped house north of Baghdad.

Intelligence gathered in the Mosul area led the U.S. military to al-Saudi, who was in a car with Hamdan. A precision helicopter strike killed both and destroyed their vehicle. U.S. forces then confirmed the men's identities.

Smith said their deaths brought to 142 the number of al-Qaida insurgents killed or captured in Mosul since the end of January.

Al-Saudi was the man who headed up the al-Qaida network in southeast Mosul, an insurgent hotbed where U.S. forces wage daily battles against the group.

"Mosul is the center of al-Qaida's terrorist activities today. Mosul is a critical crossroads for al-Qaida in Iraq. Baghdad has always been al-Qaida's operational center of gravity, but Mosul remains their strategic center of gravity as it provides access to the flow of foreign fighters," Smith said.

Mosul is located at the locus of roads that connect Iraq with Syria to the west, Turkey to the north and Iran to the east. Many fighters smuggled in from Syria make their way through Mosul, where they can easily blend in with city's ethnically and religiously diverse population.

"It is their strategic center of gravity. One-half to two-thirds of attacks in Iraq today are in and around Mosul," Smith said.

A successful program to recruit and fund Sunni tribesmen has also slashed al-Qaida's influence in Baghdad and western Anbar province, pushing the group into Diyala province and up toward Mosul — fighting as they retreat north.

In one incident Sunday, 13 gunmen were killed and eight were injured in clashes with American and Iraqi forces in the town of Tal Afar — on the road from Syria to Mosul. Tal Afar Mayor Maj. Gen. Najim Abdullah said that two police officers were also killed and four were injured.

In two other separate attacks in Diyala, police reported that five people were killed when a roadside bomb hit a bus, while another assault killed a patrolling police officer.

It remains unclear if al-Qaida was responsible for Friday's kidnapping of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho and the killing of three people who were with him.

Smith said that Iraqi and U.S. forces were searching for those who abducted the cleric as he left Mass in the northern city of Mosul. The European Union also appealed for his release and condemned the kidnapping in an announcement.

Smith said there was no way to predict when Mosul would be rid of al-Qaida, adding that "there is no timetable per se to turn over security in any particular area of Iraq, including Baghdad" to Iraqi forces.

According to the military, al-Saudi planned and conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a reported attempt with a 5,000-lb vehicle bomb that would have killed hundreds of people if it had exploded.

Al-Saudi was a close associate of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri and arrived in Mosul with a group of foreign fighters last August after spending time fighting in Afghanistan.

"After fighting and training in Afghanistan, he was brought to Iraq by Abu Ayyub al-Masri in November 2007, one of four Saudi Arabians appointed to supervise al-Qaida activities in Mosul. He was quickly moved up to run all of the terror network's operations in southeast Mosul, becoming the most visible and active al-Qaida operative in the area," Smith said.

In another incident, the military expressed regret over the killing of a teenager Friday by a helicopter gunship that thought it was firing on suspected roadside bombers planting a device, the military said.

It added that residents later told troops that a group of boys had been digging up roots for firewood.

___

Associated Press Writer Bradley Brooks contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS 6th graf to correct that 142 killed or captured since end of January sted beginning of year.)

[Ophiel]

I'm amazed people still keep on applying for the job.

[Black Mambo]

I love you for this thread.

As I said in my rep, it's funny but it really shouldn't be.

I wonder if it is just a case of lower-in-command folks taking leadership when the leaders are killed, or if this is just a nice constant stream of propaganda to keep us feeling comfortable that they're totally getting those bad guys.

Either way, I never clicked on to this before, but now that you mention it, I've probably read variations on this same story a million times, to the point where I hardly even bother anymore.

And they just tried to bomb some al-qaida folks in Somalia too. Always on the ball, those 'mericans.

[spasmachine]

Originally Posted by Ophiel

I'm amazed people still keep on applying for the job.

I think it's more a case of "TAG you're it no returns".

That reminds me Orphie I put your name forwards

[Ophiel]

[thisbytes]

Have we killed enough out of the deck of cards yet for a rousing game of strip poker?

[herekitty]

I should have made the title of this thread "captured and/or killed". I don't think there's a mod in this forum but if one happens to read this, please change the title for me?

Originally Posted by Black Mambo

I wonder if it is just a case of lower-in-command folks taking leadership when the leaders are killed, or if this is just a nice constant stream of propaganda to keep us feeling comfortable that they're totally getting those bad guys.

Either way, I never clicked on to this before, but now that you mention it, I've probably read variations on this same story a million times, to the point where I hardly even bother anymore.

And they just tried to bomb some al-qaida folks in Somalia too. Always on the ball, those 'mericans.

I think it's a combination of both factors, plus more. What's interesting to me is that they undoubtedly hope to make people feel like they're totally winning this war on terror with each of these captures. But in my eyes, if even 1/4 of them are true, then we're most likely fucked because people are clearly going to keep al qaida going forever, no matter how dangerous it's perceived to be. The other factor I imagine is a part of this is that they find low level terrorists and/or people who actually have nothing to do with al qaida and make them out to be a bigger deal than they actually are.
always on the ball, lol.

High-level al-Qaida figure is captured - Yahoo! News

By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 30 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Authorities have captured a high-level al-Qaida figure who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon announced Friday.

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to say when or where Mohammad Rahim was captured — or by whom — announcing only that he was handed over by the CIA to the Pentagon earlier this week and is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But in a memo obtained by The Associated Press, CIA Director Michael Hayden told agency employees that Rahim was detained last summer, and he suggested Rahim was not captured by American authorities.

"Rahim's detention in the summer of 2007 was a blow to more than one terrorist network," Hayden said of the Afghani. "He gave aid to al-Qaida, the Taliban, and other anti-coalition militants."

Hayden said "Rahim was eventually moved into US custody — and-given his past and the continuing threat he presented to American interests — placed in CIA's interrogation program."

Since early in the global war on terrorism, the CIA has held captured suspects in secret prisons and interrogated them. Rahim became the 16th so called "high-value" suspect handed over to the military by the CIA and now being held at Guantanamo.

"Rahim is a tough, seasoned jihadist," Hayden said. "His combat experience, which dates back to the 1980s, includes plots against US and Afghan targets."

Rahim is a close associate of bin Laden and has ties to al-Qaida organizations throughout the Middle East, Whitman said. Officials said Rahim helped prepare the al-Qaida hideout at Tora Bora — a mountain area full of warrens used by bin Laden during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

He assisted al-Qaida's escape from the area during the U.S. operation to try to catch the al-Qaida leader, officials said.

"In 2001, as the terrorist haven in Afghanistan was collapsing, Rahim helped prepare Tora Bora as a hideout," Hayden said. "When al-Qaida had to flee from there, Rahim was part of that operation, too."

Officials allege that he sought chemicals for one attack on US forces in Afghanistan, and tried to recruit individuals with access to American military facilities there.

"While that record alone would justify Rahim's capture, it does not fully describe his place in the terrorist infrastructure," Hayden said. "Proficient in several languages and familiar with the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, he was also an extremist facilitator and courier with high-level contacts."

Rahim is perhaps best known in counterterror circles as a personal facilitator and translator for bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders, Hayden said.

Hayden said the most powerful tool against terror suspects "is good intelligence work, including cultivation of the partnerships overseas that were so critical to ending the terrorist career of Mohammad Rahim."

___

AP reporter Pamela Hess contributed to this report.

[fagarielina]

BBC’s killer documentary called “The Power of Nightmares“. Top CIA officials openly admit, Al-Qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time. The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws so they could go after “the bad guy of their choice” namely laws that had been set in place to protect us from mobs and “criminal organizations” such as the Mafia. They paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government’s story of Al-Qaeda, a “group” or criminal organization they could “legally” go after. This video documentary is off the hook…

[Black Mambo]

Originally Posted by fagarielina

BBC’s killer documentary called “The Power of Nightmares“. Top CIA officials openly admit, Al-Qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time. The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws so they could go after “the bad guy of their choice” namely laws that had been set in place to protect us from mobs and “criminal organizations” such as the Mafia. They paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government’s story of Al-Qaeda, a “group” or criminal organization they could “legally” go after. This video documentary is off the hook…

I'll see if I can find a link to this online. The BBC usually has these videos available on their site.

[fagarielina]

cool
aha cos the place i got thatfrom didnt have it

[zoanthropy]

LOL @ Al Qaeda... less people take them seriously....

It is a matter of time before the U.S. rounds up all the Al Qaeda people and force them to suck on each others penis....

Rumors swirling they actually like stuff like that... Al Qaeda loves the taste of funk...

[fagarielina]

haha thatsfunyn if theyre real and people arent takingthem serious theyd be all
"cmon guys wrere real a we did do 911! noreally!
really for seriouscereal
"

[never was]

Originally Posted by fagarielina

BBC’s killer documentary called “The Power of Nightmares“. Top CIA officials openly admit, Al-Qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time. The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws so they could go after “the bad guy of their choice” namely laws that had been set in place to protect us from mobs and “criminal organizations” such as the Mafia. They paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government’s story of Al-Qaeda, a “group” or criminal organization they could “legally” go after. This video documentary is off the hook…

i saw that when it was screened on bbc2, they put it on at about 11pm on a sunday night I loved his analysis of the media.
it's been long established that the idea of al qaeda as a self contained and coherent whole is a fiction, and it's more suited to a hydra model, or being thought of as a loose alliance of fairly autonomous cells or groups. but that would be less easy to represent I guess.

[fagarielina]

i wanna be a terrorist when i grow up

[herekitty]

Qaeda planner linked to plots in UK believed dead - Yahoo! News

this war will last longer than the natural life spans of its participants.

By Randall Mikkelsen Wed Apr 9, 4:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda planner Abu Obaidah al Masri, a main suspect in the 2005 London public transit bombings and a foiled 2006 plot to blow up passenger planes, is believed dead from natural causes, U.S. and British officials said on Wednesday.

"There is compelling reason to believe that Abu Obaidah is dead," a U.S. counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity. McClatchy newspapers reported that Masri died of hepatitis in Pakistan.

The U.S. official said Masri appeared to have died of natural causes, and a British official said his death had been known to security sources for some time.

"He was a major operational figure," another U.S. official said of Masri, the nom de guerre of one of the least known major al Qaeda figures.

Masri was an Egyptian, known as an explosives expert and a key figure in spreading Islamic militancy to Europe by bringing young Muslims with Western backgrounds to Pakistan for training, said M.J. Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London. "The terror trail keeps leading back to Pakistan, and Masri was an essential part of al Qaeda's headquarters in that country."

The U.S. official confirmed that Masri was suspected in the plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean. The Washington Post said in 2006 he was believed to be al Qaeda's conduit to British-Pakistani cells that carried out the July 7, 2005 subway and bus bombings in London that killed 56 people.

"He was someone ... who had ties to operations outside of the South Asia region. Al Qaeda lost something when this man died," the U.S. official said, noting, however, that the organization does have a "regenerative capability."

Brookings Institution terrorism analyst Daniel Benjamin said, "If there is any one lesson from the last few years, al Qaeda doesn't have a shortage of operational planners."

British officials declined to comment on links with the London bombings or the 2006 airline bomb plot, for which eight men went on trial last week.

Prosecutors have told the trial that at least four of the defendants visited Pakistan in 2005 and 2006, including a suspected ringleader who went there just a few weeks before the group was arrested. However, they have not provided details of any of the men's alleged contacts there.

U.S. officials declined to discuss Masri's whereabouts when he died. Much of al Qaeda's leadership is believed to be holed up in remote areas of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border.

Masri had been reported killed in a 2006 missile strike in Pakistan, but that was disproved. Later that year he was reported to have escaped a separate missile strike on an Islamic school in Pakistan.

(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London; editing by Chris Wilson)

[herekitty]

I don't actually know if this guy was killed by the US but I'll put this here anyway. lol @ the indignation of al-Sadr. I know I shouldn't, but he acts surprised that someone would try to kill his associates. Too bad the guy was a moderate. That's the only thing that actually makes me think the US was involved tbh.

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Fri Apr 11, 7:57 PM ET

BAGHDAD - Gunmen assassinated a top aide of anti-American leader Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday, sharpening a Shiite power struggle that has already triggered fighting between the cleric's followers and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

Riyadh al-Nouri, director of al-Sadr's office in Najaf, was gunned down by an unknown number assailants near his home after returning from prayer services, police and Sadrist officials said.

Al-Sadr blamed the Americans and their Iraqi allies for the killing but called for calm — presumably to avoid a showdown at a time his Mahdi Army militia is under pressure by Iraqi and U.S.-led forces in Baghdad and southern Iraq.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also a Shiite, condemned "this savage crime" and ordered an investigation "to pursue and arrest the killers." But many of the 5,000 people who attended al-Nouri's funeral later Friday in Najaf chanted "al-Maliki is the enemy of God" as they shouted slogans against al-Sadr's Shiite political rivals.

Authorities declared a curfew in Najaf, the world's premier Shiite theological center 100 miles south of Baghdad. Security forces took to the streets in several major cities across the Shiite south. A curfew was also imposed in Hillah, where government troops clashed with al-Sadr's militia last month.

The assassination of such an influential Sadrist figure is likely to increase tension between al-Sadr's movement and the Shiite-led government.

Several prominent Sadrists described al-Nouri as a voice of moderation within the movement, arguing against an armed confrontation with the Americans and al-Sadr's Shiite rivals. He had also opposed a decision by the Sadrists last year to withdraw from al-Maliki's government.

Al-Nouri, 41, was one of al-Sadr's closest aides. Al-Nouri's sister is married to one of al-Sadr's brothers. As director of the Najaf office, al-Nouri was al-Sadr's representative in the world's most prestigious center of Shiite learning.

Al-Nouri and another top al-Sadr lieutenant, Sheik Mustafa al-Yacoubi, were detained by American soldiers in May 2004 in the killing a year earlier of a moderate Shiite cleric, Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Khoei, in Najaf shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

An arrest warrant was issued for al-Sadr himself but was never served. The warrant and the closing by U.S. authorities of al-Sadr's newspaper triggered massive uprisings that engulfed Shiite areas of central and southern Iraq.

Al-Nouri and al-Yacoubi were freed in 2005 as part of an agreement to end the Sadrist rebellion, which claimed several thousand lives.

Tension between al-Sadr and other Shiite parties exploded into violence last month when al-Maliki launched an ill-planned offensive against Shiite militias and gangs in Basra, Iraq's second largest city.

The offensive faltered after al-Sadr's militia launched attacks throughout the south and in Baghdad, where militants showered the U.S.-controlled Green Zone with rockets and mortars, killing four Americans.

Clashes have continued in Baghdad and Basra, despite al-Sadr's order March 30 for his militiamen to stand down under a deal brokered in Iran.

American and Iraqi officials insist the Basra crackdown was not aimed at al-Sadr's political movement but at criminals and Iranian-backed splinter groups. But Sadrists believed their Shiite rivals in government were trying to weaken their movement before provincial elections this fall.

One of those rival parties, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, controls the security services in Najaf. Sadrist officials said al-Nouri was slain about 300 yards from a security checkpoint but that it took police about 10 minutes to respond to the sounds of gunfire.

In his statement Friday, al-Sadr, who is believed to be in the Iranian holy city of Qom, blamed the killing on "the hands of the occupiers and their stooges reaching out traitorously and aggressively against our dear martyr," a reference to the U.S. and its Iraqi allies.

"I call upon Sadrist followers to be patient," said al-Sadr, who is under enormous pressure from all Iraqi political parties to disband his militia, his most important instrument of power.

"The occupiers will not rest in our land as long as I am alive," he said. "We demand the government open an investigation and punish the criminals. We call upon all political and religious groups to work toward ending the killing of clerics."

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, described the killing as an attempt "to destabilize the country" and encourage "fighting among brothers in religion."

Soon after the assassination, a rocket slammed into the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, blowing a large hole in the wall and devastating an unoccupied room. Police said three people were killed, but hotel staff said only two employees received minor injuries.

It appeared the rocket had been fired from a Shiite militia area at the Green Zone, located dire