Washington – Al-Qaida: No. 3 Official Killed With Family

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    This image released by the Site Intelligence Group made from undated video shows Sheikh Sa'id al-Masri, also known as Mustafa al-Yazid. In what could be one of the hardest blows to al-Qaida since the U.S. campaign against the terrorist organization began, the group's No. 3, al-Masri, is believed to be dead, killed by a U.S. Predator drone strike, a U.S. official said Monday, May 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Site Intelligence Group)Washington – Al-Qaida announced Tuesday that its No. 3 official, Mustafa al-Yazid, had been killed along with members of his family — perhaps one of the most severe blows to the terror movement since the U.S. campaign against al-Qaida began. A U.S. official said al-Yazid was believed to have died in a U.S. missile strike.

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    A statement posted on an al-Qaida Website said al-Yazid, which it described as the organization’s top commander in Afghanistan, was killed along with his wife, three daughters, a grandchild and other men, women and children but did not say how or where.

    The statement did not give an exact date for al-Yazid’s death, but it was dated by the Islamic calendar month of “Jemadi al-Akhar,” which falls in May.

    A U.S. official in Washington said word was “spreading in extremist circles” of his death in Pakistan’s tribal areas in the past two weeks.

    His death would be a major blow to al-Qaida, which in December “lost both its internal and external operations chiefs,” the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

    The Egyptian-born al-Yazid, also known as Sheik Saeed al-Masri, was a founding member of al-Qaida and the group’s prime conduit to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri. He was key to day-to-day control, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning, the U.S. official said.

    Al-Yazid has been reported killed before, in 2008, but this is the first time his death has been acknowledged by the militant group on the Internet.

    Two Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said al-Yazid died in a U.S. missile strike on May 21 in the North Waziristan tribal area.

    Soon after the attack, officials reported that two foreigners were among the 10 people killed, but did know their identities. Five women and two children were also wounded in the attack, which occurred in the village of Boya near the main town in the area, Miran Shah.

    The intelligence officials said they received word of al-Yazid’s death last week and confirmed it by speaking to local tribal elders and Taliban members. They said their sources had not seen al-Yazid’s body and did not know where he was buried.

    Al-Yazid has been one of many targets in a U.S. Predator drone campaign aimed at militants in Pakistan since President Barack Obama took office. Al-Yazid made no secret of his contempt for the United States, once calling it “the evil empire leading crusades against the Muslims.”

    “We have reached the point where we see no difference between the state and the American people,” al-Yazid told Pakistan’s Geo TV in a June 2008 interview. “The United States is a non-Muslim state bent on the destruction of Muslims.”

    The shadowy, 55-year-old al-Yazid has been involved with Islamic extremist movements for nearly 30 years since he joined radical student groups led by fellow Egyptian al-Zawahri, now the No. 2 figure in al-Qaida after bin Laden.

    In the early 1980s, al-Yazid served three years in an Egyptian prison for purported links to the group responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. After his release, al-Yazid turned up in Afghanistan, where, according to al-Qaida’s propaganda wing Al-Sabah, he became a founding member of the terrorist group.

    He later followed bin Laden to Sudan and back to Afghanistan, where he served as al-Qaida’s chief financial officer, managing secret bank accounts in the Persian Gulf that were used to help finance the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. After the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, al-Yazid went into hiding for years. He surfaced in May 2007 during a 45-minute interview posted on the Web by Al-Sabah, in which he was introduced as the “official in charge” of the terrorist movement’s operations in Afghanistan.

    Some security analysts believe the choice of al-Yazid as the Afghan chief may have signaled a new approach for al-Qaida in the country where it once reigned supreme.

    Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit that tracked bin Laden, believes bin Laden and al-Zawahri wanted a trusted figure to handle Afghanistan “while they turn to other aspects of the jihad outside” the country.

    Al-Yazid had little background in leading combat operations. But terrorism experts say his advantage was that he was close to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. As a fluent Pashto speaker known for impeccable manners, al-Yazid enjoyed better relations with the Afghans than many of the al-Qaida Arabs, whom the Afghans found arrogant and abrasive.

    That suggested a conscious decision by al-Qaida to embed within the Taliban organization, helping the Afghan allies with expertise and training while at the same time putting an Afghan face on the war.

    Al-Yazid himself alluded to such an approach in an interview this year with Al-Jazeera television’s Islamabad correspondent Ahmad Zaidan. Al-Yazid said al-Qaida fighters were involved at every level with the Taliban.

    “We participate with our brothers in the Islamic Emirate in all fields,” al-Yazid said. “This had a big positive effect on the (Taliban) self-esteem in Afghanistan.”

    A September 2007 al-Qaida video sought to promote the notion of close Taliban-al-Qaida ties at a time when the Afghan insurgents were launching their comeback six years after their ouster from power in Kabul.

    The video showed al-Yazid sitting with a senior Taliban commander in a field surrounded by trees as a jihad anthem played. The Taliban commander vowed to “target the infidels in Afghanistan and outside Afghanistan” and to “focus our attacks, Allah willing, on the coalition forces in Afghanistan.”

    There is also evidence that al-Yazid has promoted ties with Islamic extremist groups in Central Asia and Pakistan, where other top al-Qaida figures are believed to be hiding.

    “He definitely seems to have significant influence among the Pakistani Taliban and the Central Asian groups,” terrorism expert Evan Kohlman said. “They regularly post and share his videos on the Web, just as they would with bin Laden or al-Zawahri.”

    In August 2008, Pakistani military officials claimed al-Yazid had been killed in fighting in the Bajaur tribal area along the Afghan border. However, he turned up in subsequent al-Qaida videos, all of which had clearly been made after the Bajaur fighting.


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    16 Comments
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    Lodzker
    Lodzker
    13 years ago

    Baruch Hashem!
    but i didnt know there were al qaeda #3’s, just Osama and a multitude of #2 ’s!

    power up
    power up
    13 years ago

    “Al-Yazid has been one of many targets in a U.S. Predator drone campaign aimed at militants in Pakistan since President Barack Obama took office.”

    Media distorting facts???

    The stratagy of the drone attacks is solely bush’s credit, as far as I remember bush successfully implemented it, and obama was forced to continue it even though he wanted to dissassociate with everything bush did, since it was very successfull

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    I wonder what the US would say if israel killed a no 3 in hamas with his family

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    keep it up. go get ’em

    Ipcha mistabra
    Ipcha mistabra
    13 years ago

    My he looks like one of my rosh hayishvas brother

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    How can that be. Dident I see him with thouse satmerer guys in washigton yesterday

    chacham bashi
    chacham bashi
    13 years ago

    I demand an immediate investigation. The US should be condemned in the harshest terms for murdering Al Yazid and Egyptian national. Killing innocent civilians, women and children?
    Oh wait, wrong country. Israel didn’t do it… Than it’s fine.

    Un resolution
    Un resolution
    13 years ago

    His innocent civilian wife & kids?
    Sorry US not Israel.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Now if Israel had killed a Hamas leader even without hurting his family, there would be an international crisis and UN condemnation – and if Israel had killed a Hamas leader AND his family, as what happened here with the U.S. and Al Qaeda – there would be no end to the hate against Israel for murdering children. I’m not saying it’s right to kill the man’s children – it isn’t. I’m just showing the world’s double standards when it comes to Israel…

    elmwood
    elmwood
    13 years ago

    America should be condemed by the world boudy for the killing a muslim

    Shmuel
    Shmuel
    13 years ago

    “… was killed along with his wife, three daughters, a grandchild and other men, women and children… ”

    All these tzadikim and rachamim in one strike? Wow! I am beginning to beleive these drones are worth every penny we spend on them.

    Someone
    Someone
    13 years ago

    So were is the world outrage “Killing an innocent family” etc. Can we just imagine that this would have been done by Israel? The fact is that the only language terrorists understand is blood. We as a freedom loving country will have to use violence to quell the terrorists, no olive branch in the world will work.

    Hypocritical
    Hypocritical
    13 years ago

    So when is Dubai starting their investigation into this one?

    SD
    SD
    13 years ago

    Has Asrah Kaddisha shpwn up yet, to make sure that what’s left of their bodies is treated with proper respect?