Author Topic: Top al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu Yazid confirmed killed in Pakistan airstrike!  (Read 1239 times)

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Christians4LessGvt

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Top al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu Yazid confirmed killed
in airstrike in North Waziristan


By Bill Roggio

May 31, 2010

 
A banner from As Sahab announcing the death of top al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu Yazid 

Al Qaeda has announced that its top leader in Afghanistan and chief financial official was
killed in a US airstrike
in Pakistan ten days ago.

Mustafa Abu Yazid, who is also known as Sheikh Saeed al Masri, was killed in the May 21 Predator
strike in the village of Mohammed Khel in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. Datta Khel is a
known al Qaeda hub in North Waziristan.

As Sahab, al Qaeda's propaganda arm, released a statement announcing Yazid's death on Al Ansar,
a jihadist forum.

Rumors of Yazid's death was first reported by ABC News, which quoted US officials who said a
eulogy for Yazid was to be released by As Sahab.

Yazid is one of al Qaeda most important leaders, and he will be difficult to replace. He served as
al Qaeda's leader in Afghanistan and what the terror group refers to as the Khorasan, a region
that encompasses large areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran.
The Khorasan is considered by jihadists to be the place where they will inflict the first defeat
against their enemies in the Muslim version of Armageddon. The final battle is to take place
in the Levant - Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.

The 9-11 Commission identified Yazid as al Qaeda's "chief financial manager." In this role, Yazid
was responsible for disbursing al Qaeda funds from what is known as the Bayt al Mal, al Qaeda's
treasury. This responsibility made Yazid one of the most trusted and important al Qaeda leaders.
Because of this responsibility, Yazid is considered by some analysts to be al Qaeda's third in command.

Yazid was a founding member of Ayman al Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad, one of the founding
groups in al Qaeda. Yazid spent time in jail with Zawahiri after the assassination of Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

He also served as a top propagandist. Yazid has appeared on propaganda tapes with senior
Taliban leaders, and has announced the deaths of top al Qaeda leaders and operatives over the years.

Yazid is arguably the senior most al Qaeda leader killed in the US air campaign to date.
Other top al Qaeda leader killed in US strikes in Pakistan include: Abu Hamza Rabia, al Qaeda's
operational commander (killed in 2005); Abu Laith al Libi, the top military commander (killed in 2008);
Abu Sulayman Jazairi, the chief of al Qaeda's external network (killed in 2008); Khalid Habib,
the top military commander (killed in 2008); Abu Jihad al Masri, the leader of the Egyptian
Islamic Group and the top intelligence chief (killed in 2008); Baitullah Mehsud, the leader
of the Pakistani Taliban (killed in 2009); and Saleh al Somali, the leader of al Qaeda's external
network (killed in 2009). [For a full list, see LWJ Special Report, "Senior al Qaeda and Taliban
leaders killed in US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2010"]

Yazid was killed in Datta Khel, a region administered by North Waziristan Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar.
Al Qaeda and allied Pakistani and Central Asian jihadist groups shelter in Bahadar's tribal areas, and
they also run training camps and safe houses in the region.

Despite the known presence of al Qaeda and other foreign groups in North Waziristan, the Pakistani
military has indicated that it has no plans to take on Bahadar or the Haqqani Network, a deadly
Taliban group that is closely allied with al Qaeda. Bahadar and the Haqqanis are considered
"good Taliban" by the Pakistani military establishment as they do not carry out attacks inside Pakistan.


http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/05/top_al_qaeda_leader_1.php
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" - Ronald Reagan - June 12, 1987

Plane

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Evolution is gonna take its effect at this rate of casualty.

Not only will there be few smart persons willing to take the top jobs , there will eventually be a shortage of smart persons in the organisation as a whole.

So who will ever wave a white flag?

Kramer

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Evolution is gonna take its effect at this rate of casualty.

Not only will there be few smart persons willing to take the top jobs , there will eventually be a shortage of smart persons in the organisation as a whole.

So who will ever wave a white flag?

any good liberal is willing to wave the white flag when bowing down to anyone other than a Conservative.

Michael Tee

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Just for the hell of it, I'd like to research back to the first such " 'Terrorist' Big-Wig Killed" article - - probably goes all the way back to "Ho Chi Minh Dies in Hanoi" - - these "victories" are reported as regularly as clockwork and with great jubilation and yet, mysteriously, the war grinds on.  Almost as if it doesn't make two bits worth of difference who gets killed because someone else replaces him.  Almost as if this was never a struggle led from the top down by the other side, but a struggle led from the bottom up.  Funny, huh?

BSB

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I love me some some drones.

Michael Tee

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Yeah, drones are fun.

US drone crew blamed for Afghan civilian deaths
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100529/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S. military investigators found that "inaccurate and unprofessional" reporting by U.S. operators of a Predator drone was responsible for a missile strike that killed 23 Afghan civilians in February, according to a report released Saturday.
Release of the scathing report is part of a U.S. effort to counter rising public anger over civilian deaths, which threatens to undermine the campaign against the Taliban at a critical juncture in the nearly nine-year war. Twelve other civilians including a woman and three children were wounded in the missile strike, the report said.
Four American officers — two described as senior — received career-damaging reprimands, the U.S. command said in a statement. The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, called on the Air Force to investigate the actions of the Predator crew.
"Our most important mission here is to protect the Afghan people," said McChrystal, who had apologized to President Hamid Karzai shortly after the attack. "Inadvertently killing or injuring civilians is heartbreaking and undermines their trust and confidence in our mission. We will do all we can to regain that trust."
The attack also underscores the risks of using unmanned aircraft to fire on insurgents, not only in Afghanistan but also in neighboring Pakistan. Drone strikes against insurgent sanctuaries in border areas of Pakistan have fueled anti-Americanism among the 175 million Pakistanis.
The deadly attack occurred Feb. 21 after the unmanned aircraft, controlled by a crew at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, spotted three vehicles on a main road in Uruzgan province about seven miles (12 kilometers) from where U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers were tracking insurgents, the U.S. report said.
Suspecting the convoy contained fighters, the ground commander ordered an airstrike, and U.S. helicopters fired missiles at the vehicles, the report said.
But the attack order was based on inaccurate information from the Predator crew and a flawed analysis of the situation by U.S. commanders, according to the author of the report, Army Maj. Gen. Timothy McHale.
Poorly functioning command posts "failed to provide the ground force commander with the evidence and analysis that the vehicles were not a hostile threat and the inaccurate and unprofessional reporting of the Predator crew ... deprived the ground force commander of vital information," McHale wrote.
"Information that the convoy was anything other than an attacking force was ignored or downplayed by the Predator crew," it said.
After the first salvo, the helicopter crews stopped firing because they saw brightly colored clothing in the convoy — a strong indication that women were present. A video shot from the drone showed women and children present.
McHale criticized commanders for failing to report "ample evidence" of civilian casualties for nearly 12 hours after the attack, while they tried for confirmation.
A U.S. Forces spokesman, Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, said the only people the drone operators could see in the convoy were in the back of a pickup truck. Smith said the Predator crew should have reported the possibility of civilians in the two cars.
"They did not report the ambiguity of what they were seeing," Smith said. "They weren't clearly seeing a heavily armed threat."
Human rights activists welcomed the report as a sign that NATO was being more open about admitting mistakes.
"But transparency and public accountability for the conduct of troops are still the exception rather than the rule," said Erica Gaston, a lawyer who works on civilian casualties issues for the New York-based Open Society Institute.
Accidental killing of civilians by NATO forces has become a major source of friction between the Afghan government and its international partners, even though the United Nations says the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths are caused by the Taliban and their allies.
The issue has taken on new urgency as NATO prepares for a major operation to secure Kandahar, the largest city in the south and the Taliban's birthplace and stronghold. NATO commanders believe securing the city is key to turning back the Taliban in the south, the major theater of the war.
But opposition to the planned operation is running high in Kandahar. That has forced NATO commanders to plan the operation carefully to minimize civilian casualties — even if that adds risks facing U.S. and allied forces.
The U.N. says at least 2,412 civilians were killed in 2009 — a 14 percent increase over the previous year. NATO and Afghan government forces were responsible for 25 percent of the deaths, the U.N. said in January report. Of those, about 60 percent were due to airstrikes, the U.N. said.
Since assuming command last year, McChrystal has sharply curbed the use of airpower if civilians are at risk. The new policy has reduced the number of civilian deaths attributed to the coalition but has not entirely assuaged public anger.
Also Saturday, the governor of the remote northeastern province of Nuristan said government forces abandoned the main town in the Barg-e-Matal district after a major assault by Taliban militants, many of them coming in from nearby Pakistan.
Gov. Jamaluddin Badar described the move as a "strategic withdrawal" to prevent civilian casualties after a nearly weeklong assault by hundreds of Taliban fighters.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a telephone message to reporters that insurgents had taken complete control of the district, captured three police vehicles and forced security forces to flee checkpoints along the main roads.
Taliban strength grew in the Nuristan area after U.S. troops abandoned an outpost where eight American soldiers were killed in a fierce attack last October.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100529/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

Xavier_Onassis

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I think it is rather interesting that US drone pilots, sitting behind what is essentially a game console somewhere in the Nevada desert are getting combat pay.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Kramer

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I think it is rather interesting that US drone pilots, sitting behind what is essentially a game console somewhere in the Nevada desert are getting combat pay.



Liberals clearly worry too much about how much money people make.

Michael Tee

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<<Liberals clearly worry too much about how much money people make.>>

That's cuz we live in the real world, where money talks and bullshit walks.  We like to know if some health-care exec doing the same job as a $93K civil servant in Ontario is skimming off some $3 or $4 million in profit out of the pockets of the sick and the dying for doing the same thing.

Of course, if you DON'T want to live in the real world, you can always approach the very same problem with anguished squeals about "socialism" or "freedom" or some such nonsensical rot and never have to deal with the cold hard facts of money.

sirs

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I'll take the "cold hard facts" of money & freedom, every day of the week, over the "cold hard facts" of power and oppressive governing by those who claim to know better than the rest of us serf

You can stick the evils of fascism & communism, up your canadian commie arse
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BSB

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I love me some drones.