Al Qaeda deputy leader Abu Yahya killed in Drone Attack

rock127

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Al Qaeda 'Number Two' killed in recent Drone Attack

The United States says it has confirmed the death of Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Abu Yahya al-Libi, describing it as a "major blow" to the militant group.White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing US intelligence sources, said Libi was Al Qaeda's "general manager" responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and managing relations with affiliates.

"We have confirmation of his death," Mr Carney told a news briefing."There is now no clear successor to take on the breadth of his responsibilities."He declined to say where or how Libi died, but yesterday Pakistani intelligence officials said he was killed by a drone strike early on Monday (local time).The drone-launched missile was targeted at a suspected militant hideout in Hesokhel, a village in North Waziristan, a tribal region in Pakistan along its border with Afghanistan.

It came after days of reported US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas.The US and Pakistan are locked in difficult negotiations to reopen overland supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan, with no signs of a breakthrough.

Islamabad blocked the routes last November to protest the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers by cross-border friendly fire from NATO aircraft.
Pakistani officials say the CIA drone campaign has fuelled anti-US sentiment in Pakistan and is counterproductive because of collateral damage.But US officials say such strikes are highly effective against militants.Libi was thought to be in his late 40s, a Libyan citizen, and second only to Ayman al Zawahiri in Al Qaeda's hierarchy.

It is believed he was a key figure in what remained of the core Al Qaeda network founded by Osama bin Laden, who was killed last year in a US commando raid on his hideout near a Pakistani military academy.In the wake of bin Laden's death, US officials said, Zawahri became the leader of Al Qaeda's core group, advised and assisted by a small coterie of veteran militants.

The officials said Libi had recently emerged as Zawahri's principal deputy.He had appeared in Al Qaeda propaganda videos and once escaped from an a US-operated prison in Afghanistan.The US waited more than 24 hours before spreading word that they were confident Libi had been killed.In addition to his escape, along with three other militants, from US custody in 2005, he at least once had been reported, prematurely, to have been killed in a US drone strike.
 

rock127

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Those were suspected ...they can be civilians too. and howcome consider children women killed in drones attack as suspected terrorists.

So you were talking about civilians like Libi living in Pakistan as a honored guest :lol:
 

Yusuf

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Welcome news. We know there will be a new #2 but then even he will be killed. Zawahiri has to be killed. Once he goes, there will be severe crisis in AQ. But then AQ has been "franchised" and many groups with individual leaders have come up. AQ a curse to humanity. Let then all be damned to hell.
 

mayfair

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Well this fits in with the widely accepted view- Number two and Pakistan are intricately linked.
 

ajtr

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Slain al Qaeda deputy leader Abu Yahya al Libi's brother flays 'inhumane' execution

Slain al Qaeda deputy leader Abu Yahya al Libi's brother flays 'inhumane' execution


TRIPOLI: The brother of al Qaeda's second-in-command, who was killed in a US drone strike, said Washington's use of the remote-controlled weapons is inhumane and makes a mockery of its claims to champion human rights.
US officials confirmed on Tuesday that Libyan-born al Qaeda operative Abu Yahya al-Libi had been killed by a drone strike in Pakistan, in what was described as a 'major blow' to the militant group.
The attack is likely to fuel an increasingly fierce debate about the legality and morality of the drones, which have become one of the chief US weapons against al Qaeda but which opponents say stretch the definition of the legitimate use of lethal force.
"The United States talks human rights and freedoms for all, but the method they used to kill him is savage," Abu Bakr al-Qayed, brother of al-Libi, told Reuters on Wednesday in a telephone interview.

"The way the Americans killed him is heinous and inhumane," he said, speaking from the town of Wadi Otba, south of the Libyan capital. "We are in the 21st century and they claim to be civilised and this is how they take out people."
"Regardless of my brother's ideology, or beliefs, he was a human being and at the end of the day deserves humane treatment," he said.
For years considered a covert Central Intelligence Agency programme, the unmanned aircraft can be remotely piloted from thousands of kilometres (miles) away and can fire missiles at targets seen only on a monitor at the push of a button.
White House officials say there is nothing in international law that forbids the use of the drones and that, by killing dangerous insurgents, they are making Americans safer.
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday that they will keep up their attacks in Pakistan.
That view has been challenged by authorities in Pakistan, who are angry because many of the strikes have happened on their soil, and by rights campaigners.
Civil liberties groups argue that the strikes are illegal because they take place outside an active battlefield, meaning the rules of law which allow a combatant to kill their opponent do not apply.

Radicalisation

The United States and security analysts say al-Libi was a veteran militant and leader of operations for al Qaeda, a group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on US cities as well as dozens of other acts of violence.
His brother offered a more nuanced account, describing how al-Libi had gone from being a chemistry student in Libya to hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan's North Waziristan region.
He said his brother, also known as Mohammed Hassan al-Qayed, had been radicalised by his treatment under Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader killed in an uprising last year. Gaddafi's security forces routinely arrested anyone who strayed from officially approved Islam.
"We come from a great line of students of religion, we are a religious family and we all studied Islamist jurisprudence at school. I am an Islamic studies professor," al-Qayed, 57, told Reuters.
"He was a very bright student and always had high marks and he wanted more out of his studies, so was forced to leave Libya"¦ The last time we saw him was in 1990 when he left to study abroad because he was oppressed in Libya due to his beliefs."
"The last time we spoke to him was in 2002, and since then we only know what's happening with him through the media," the brother said.
"I never heard him speak of killing innocent people and don't believe he would ever condone it. He was a Muslim, and we don't kill people without reason."
"My brother was attracted to his ideology because he was oppressed and we were all oppressed and saw great suffering from Gaddafi's regime."
In what one analyst said was in retaliation to al-Libi's killing, a bomb exploded outside the offices of the US diplomatic mission in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi early on Wednesday. There was only slight damage.
Al-Qayed said he knew nothing about the attack in Benghazi.
Asked if he expected any reaction inside Libya to his brother's killing, he said only: "I don't know, but the Muslim is the brother of the Muslim."
He appealed to Pakistan's government and humanitarian agencies to find his brother's body and bring it back to Libya "so we may bury him here as a martyr."
 

Tronic

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Re: Slain al Qaeda deputy leader Abu Yahya al Libi's brother flays 'inhumane' executi

Slain al Qaeda deputy leader Abu Yahya al Libi's brother flays 'inhumane' execution


TRIPOLI: The brother of al Qaeda's second-in-command, who was killed in a US drone strike, said Washington's use of the remote-controlled weapons is inhumane and makes a mockery of its claims to champion human rights.
US officials confirmed on Tuesday that Libyan-born al Qaeda operative Abu Yahya al-Libi had been killed by a drone strike in Pakistan, in what was described as a 'major blow' to the militant group.
The attack is likely to fuel an increasingly fierce debate about the legality and morality of the drones, which have become one of the chief US weapons against al Qaeda but which opponents say stretch the definition of the legitimate use of lethal force.
"The United States talks human rights and freedoms for all, but the method they used to kill him is savage," Abu Bakr al-Qayed, brother of al-Libi, told Reuters on Wednesday in a telephone interview.

"The way the Americans killed him is heinous and inhumane," he said, speaking from the town of Wadi Otba, south of the Libyan capital. "We are in the 21st century and they claim to be civilised and this is how they take out people."
"Regardless of my brother's ideology, or beliefs, he was a human being and at the end of the day deserves humane treatment," he said.
For years considered a covert Central Intelligence Agency programme, the unmanned aircraft can be remotely piloted from thousands of kilometres (miles) away and can fire missiles at targets seen only on a monitor at the push of a button.
White House officials say there is nothing in international law that forbids the use of the drones and that, by killing dangerous insurgents, they are making Americans safer.
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday that they will keep up their attacks in Pakistan.
That view has been challenged by authorities in Pakistan, who are angry because many of the strikes have happened on their soil, and by rights campaigners.
Civil liberties groups argue that the strikes are illegal because they take place outside an active battlefield, meaning the rules of law which allow a combatant to kill their opponent do not apply.
And yet, on another thread you state, "there are none innocent if they are working against muslim ummah interests for the occupation force be it civilians or be it army rest are collateral damage."

So why now sit here and highlight all those points? Trying to invoke and play upon the mercy and humanitarian ideals of the civilized world?

There is a reason I have always called your beloved "Mujahids" and their sympathizers cowards; this article is just another perfect example working towards enforcing that belief.


Radicalisation

The United States and security analysts say al-Libi was a veteran militant and leader of operations for al Qaeda, a group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on US cities as well as dozens of other acts of violence.
His brother offered a more nuanced account, describing how al-Libi had gone from being a chemistry student in Libya to hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan's North Waziristan region.
He said his brother, also known as Mohammed Hassan al-Qayed, had been radicalised by his treatment under Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader killed in an uprising last year. Gaddafi's security forces routinely arrested anyone who strayed from officially approved Islam.
"We come from a great line of students of religion, we are a religious family and we all studied Islamist jurisprudence at school. I am an Islamic studies professor," al-Qayed, 57, told Reuters.
"He was a very bright student and always had high marks and he wanted more out of his studies, so was forced to leave Libya"¦ The last time we saw him was in 1990 when he left to study abroad because he was oppressed in Libya due to his beliefs."
"The last time we spoke to him was in 2002, and since then we only know what's happening with him through the media," the brother said.
"I never heard him speak of killing innocent people and don't believe he would ever condone it. He was a Muslim, and we don't kill people without reason."
"My brother was attracted to his ideology because he was oppressed and we were all oppressed and saw great suffering from Gaddafi's regime."
In what one analyst said was in retaliation to al-Libi's killing, a bomb exploded outside the offices of the US diplomatic mission in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi early on Wednesday. There was only slight damage.
Al-Qayed said he knew nothing about the attack in Benghazi.
Asked if he expected any reaction inside Libya to his brother's killing, he said only: "I don't know, but the Muslim is the brother of the Muslim."
He appealed to Pakistan's government and humanitarian agencies to find his brother's body and bring it back to Libya "so we may bury him here as a martyr."
Good luck collecting a splattered Al Libi and while they're at it, might aswell try to fish out Osama awell.
 
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Drsomnath999

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America, India, Pakistan, China: the next game

The tension between Washington and Islamabad over the former's drone assaults on targets in Pakistan is rising. But a prospective geopolitical rivalry involving both countries has even wider ramifications.

The reported death of Abu Yahya al-Libi in a drone attack on 4 June 2012 is seen in Washington as a serious blow to what remains of the al-Qaida movement in north-west Pakistan. His status is open to question and may be less ↑ than Barack Obama's administration would want the public to believe. But the incident ↑ is further proof of the central role of armed drones in United States operations in the region (see "Drone warfare: cost and challenge" [23 June 2011]; "The drone-war blowback" [29 September 2011]; and "America's new wars, and militarised diplomacy" [31 May 2012].

Drone attacks in Pakistan increased substantially after Obama became president in January 2009. There had been five in 2007 and thirty-five in 2008; the number ↑ went up to fifty-three in 2009 and 117 in 2010. There was a drop in 2011, partly due to public opposition in Pakistan, and a pause earlier in 2012 after the killing ↑ of twenty-four Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border attack in November 2011, but this was followed by another surge in activity.

Washington sees the use ↑ of drones as a successful policy, whereas for Islamabad it represents an infringement of its national sovereignty. The Pakistan government's criticism ↑ owes much to the strength of public opinion, which in turn is fuelled by direct experience ↑ of the drones - not least the fact that they are frequently audible and visible, thus making their affront obvious.

The Obama administration is most unlikely to curb its drone operations ↑ in the context of a difficult re-election campaign in which Mitt Romney will constantly play on the idea of a weak and defeatist president. Indeed, reports of Obama's direct ↑ involvement in drone-attack decisions reflect a conscious decision to attempt to counter this portrayal (see Jo Becker & Scott Shane, "Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will ↑ ", New York Times, 29 May 2012). The effect will be to worsen relations ↑ between Pakistan and the United States still further.

This, in turn, is likely to be greatly exacerbated by two other factors that have little or nothing to do with the drones and have attracted far less attention than they deserve. Both concern the relationship ↑ between India and the United States, and are likely to have a substantial and persistent impact in the coming years, whoever is voted into the White House in November 2012.

An emerging axis

The first factor is pressure from the Pentagon to get India greatly to expand its military aid to Afghanistan (see Rahul Bedi, "US asks India to increase Afghan military assistance ↑ ", Jane's Defence Weekly, 30 May 2012). A substantial team of US government officials had meetings in Delhi on 17-18 May; the officials sought multi-layered assistance from the Indian government that would go far beyond India's current limited role in military training, its training of the Afghan judiciary, and involvement in numerous engineering projects.

The US's wish-list includes direct Indian financial aid ↑ for Afghanistan's national-security forces (ANSF); the provision of training to 25,000 ANSF personnel (including up to 500 officers) at bases in India; and the supply of tanks, field-artillery, rocket-launchers, mortars, communications equipment and other materials.

The effect of all of this would be a deep and lasting relationship between India and the Afghan military. Such an outcome would be intensely opposed by Pakistan, though with little effect once Washington fulfils its intention to pull most of its forces from Afghanistan (after which it has little expectation of Pakistani cooperation).

This close linking of India with Afghanistan at the behest of the United States, is - taken on its own - as welcome in New Delhi as it is hated in Islamabad (see Kanchan Lakshman, "India in Afghanistan: a presence under pressure", 11 July 2008). But it is only part ↑ of an evolving story, and here the second factor is of much wider geopolitical significance. This is the growing evidence of a deepening military relationship between the United States and India that relates to both countries' concern ↑ over the rise of China.

This week, the United States defence secretary Leon Panetta made a high-level visit to New Delhi that included scheduled meetings with the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, defence minister AK Antony, and national-security adviser Shivshankar Menon (see "U.S.-India to Talk Defense Tech Transfer, Co-production ↑ ", Defense News, 5 June 2012).

Panetta, speaking ↑ at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis ↑ on 6 June, said that New Delhi "was a 'lynchpin' in a new military strategy focused on Asia"; that "military ties had dramatically improved over the past decade"; but that "more work [is] needed to ensure the two countries could safeguard the 'crossroads' of the global economy spanning the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific" (see "Leon Panetta in Delhi says India 'lynchpin' for American strategy in India ↑ ", AFP/Times of India, 6 June 2012).

Such talk of a close relationship might seem presumptuous, given India's penchant for independence in foreign ↑ policy. But in reality the Indian armed forces are in desperate need ↑ of modernisation, and look to the United States to accelerate the whole process ↑ .

The problem of military obsolescence affecting ↑ India reflects its past reliance on Soviet weaponry, which is now very unreliable; for example, the MiG aircraft fleet has suffered 482 accidents over the past three decades, leading to the deaths of 171 pilots and thirty-nine civilians (see "New damning figures for India's 'flying coffin' MiGs ↑ ", AFP, 2 May 2012). India's major internal defence problems include interminable delays in developing its indigenous light-combat aircraft.

European countries will look to potential arms markets ↑ in India, but the United States is at the forefront, offering a wide range of cooperative programmes, much of it involving advanced technologies. This is very good news for the US arms industry; but at the heart of the administration's concern is that India plays a key role in the containment of an anticipated Chinese military expansion, whether or not Beijing even ↑ has that in mind (see "China's military: threat or twist", 28 January 2011).

A new rivalry

The combination of these two factors induces something approaching political paranoia in Islamabad. Pakistan has long seen Afghanistan as providing it with defence in depth against its much more powerful neighbour: hence the need to maintain as much influence as possible, not least through support for the Taliban. Now it faces the prospect ↑ of India "invading" the Afghan space it considers ↑ vital to its security - and at the very time when India's military cooperation with ↑ the world's sole remaining superpower is increasing.

Two responses are likely. The first is a greater determination to ensure that Pakistan's allies in Afghanistan, especially the Taliban, have as big a role as possible in the future governance of the country. That alone will create many problems as the United States seeks to withdraw. The second is that Pakistan is almost certain to embark on a determined effort to intensify its existing ties with Beijing (see "Afghanistan: the regional complex", 6 October 2011).

It can thus be expected that Islamabad will attempt systematically to counter the United States-India axis in a way that provides China with a welcome opportunity to increase its own influence, not just in Pakistan but also in Afghanistan. This, the new "great game" now unfolding across Asia, promises interesting times.
America, India, Pakistan, China: the next game | openDemocracy
 

ejazr

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Peter Bergen puts the death in perspective i.e. the increasing irrelevance of AQ

CNN - And Now, Only One Senior al Qaeda Leader Left

The news that Abu Yahya al-Libi, the No.2 leader of al Qaeda, is now confirmed to have been killed in a CIA drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region along the border with Afghanistan further underlines that the terrorist group that launched the 9/11 attacks is now more or less out of business.

Under President Barack Obama, CIA drone strikes have killed 15 of the most important players in al Qaeda, according to a count maintained by the New America Foundation (a nonpartisan think tank where I am a director).

Similarly, President George W. Bush also authorized drone strikes that killed 16 important al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan while he was in office.

As a result, according to senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, there now remains only one leader of any consequence in al Qaeda and that is Ayman al-Zawahiri, the tetchy Egyptian surgeon who became the head of the group following the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, in a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan in May 2011.

Zawahiri, presumably, is keenly aware of the fate of so many of his longtime colleagues in al Qaeda. He will be expending considerable energy not to end up on the business end of a missile fired by a CIA drone if he, too, is hiding in the Pakistani tribal regions where the drone strikes have been concentrated.

Meanwhile, Zawahiri faces an almost impossible task to follow through on al Qaeda's main mission: attacking the United States, or failing that, one of its close allies.

Al Qaeda hasn't conducted a successful attack in the West since the bombings on London's transportation system on July 7, 2005, and of course, the group hasn't succeeded in attacking the United States for more than a decade.

There are, however, al Qaeda's regional affiliates still to contend with. The most virulent of those is the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It was AQAP that tried to bring down Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 using a Nigerian recruit who had secreted a hard-to-detect bomb in his underwear, and it was AQAP that smuggled bombs in printer cartridges onto cargo planes bound for the U.S. in October 2010.

Last month came news that a spy had penetrated AQAP and had retrieved a new generation of underwear bomb that the group's bomb maker had apparently recently designed to bring down a commercial jet.

But all of AQAP's plots to bring down planes have had one thing in common: They failed.

Some might say that that while al Qaeda the organization may be basically dead, its ideology continues to thrive and to inspire "lone wolves" to attack the United States.

In fact, lone wolves inspired by jihadist ideology have managed to kill a total of 17 Americans in the United States since 9/11, according to a tally maintained by the New America Foundation.

Meanwhile, 54 Americans are reported to be killed every year by lightning, according to the National Weather Service. In other words, to the average American, lightning is about 30 times more deadly than jihadist terrorism.

Few Americans harbor irrational fears about being killed by a lightning bolt. Abu Yahya al-Libi's death on Monday should remind them that fear of al Qaeda in its present state is even more irrational.
 

Singh

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But with his death, the AQ leadership has been eliminated from Pakistan, what is to be done with Pak now ?
 

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