American Said Died in Yemen Strike
By AHMED AL-HAJ 11/07/2002 11:20:06 EST
SAN`A, Yemen (AP) - An American was believed to be among the six militants killed
in a CIA missile strike this weekend, a security source said Thursday.
The six men, including Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, al-Qaida's top man in Yemen,
were killed Sunday when a Hellfire missile fired from a pilotless CIA spy plane
destroyed the car they were riding in.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the other five were known by
their aliases - Saleh Abu Hamam, Al-Qia'gaa, Abu Jirah, Mounir and Jalal, also known
as Ahmed Hijazi. Jalal is believed to be a U.S. citizen, according to the source. He
provided no other details and did not say how authorities came to establish that Jalal
was American.
Authorities were trying to establish the men's real identities, the source told The
Associated Press.
He said al-Harethi, who was in his mid-40s, first met al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden
in the 1980s during the war against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. The two men
stayed in contact after the war ended and met again in Sudan, where bin Laden went
to in the 1990s, the source said.
Al-Harethi was believed to have coordinated the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole
in Aden, which killed 17 U.S. sailors.
A Yemeni newspaper, September 26, reported that al-Harethi plotted last month's
attack on the French tanker Limburg off Yemen, which left a Bulgarian crew member
dead and 90,000 barrels of oil discharged in the Gulf of Aden. The newspaper did not
cite sources.
The newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is President Ali Abdullah Saleh's press
secretary, also reported that al-Harethi was responsible for several terror attacks in
Yemen and was planning more attacks on Western targets in Yemen.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in the capital San`a closed for security reasons
and protection of the building was increased. There were fears that the CIA involvement
in the attack could create a backlash in a country where Islamic militants have
operated freely in the past and most oppose U.S. policies toward Iraq and the
perceived American bias toward Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.
Yemen's cooperation with U.S. authorities in the war against terror is a sensitive issue
in this Arab country, where al-Qaida is active and is the ancestral homeland of bin
Laden. |
