The Hindu : Al-Qaeda man `killed'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 06, 2002

International

International

Al-Qaeda man `killed'

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington nov. 5. Washington, nov. 5. The CIA and the Pentagon have not officially commented on the missile hit in Yemen that claimed six lives including that of a noted Al-Qaeda terrorist, Qaed Salim Sunian al Harethi - also known as Abu Ali.

Administration officials are saying that al Harithi was involved in the attack on the USS Cole in November 2000 that killed 17 American sailors in Aden; and was also involved in the attack on the French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen last month.

According to information available here, the vehicle carrying al Harithi and five others was spotted perhaps by a Predator plane operated by the CIA and was taken out by a Hellfire missile. Witnesses have been quoted as saying that they had also spotted a helicopter which is also capable of unleashing Hellfire missiles. Senior Cabinet officials, did not comment on the incident in Yemen per se have made no bones of the fact that if high ranking terrorists in the Al-Qaeda outfit are taken out, not much sleep is going to be lost in the bargain. "It would be a good thing if he were out of business, '' the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, remarked in a reference to the killing.

The incident has brought about at least two things - the growing cooperation between the Bush administration and Yemen in the rooting out of the Al-Qaeda terrorists sitting in that country; and the expanding role of the CIA in the war against terrorists. Further, the U.S. has also become very active in the Horn of Africa.

Officially, nothing much is heard about the role of the nodal spy agency but it is generally believed that the CIA has assumed a top role, including an offensive one, in the war against terror. The Government in Yemen has been under pressure from Washington in the last several months, especially post September 11, 2001 to come to terms with the Al-Qaeda; and in the aftermath of the Afghanistan operations one of the suppositions here is that a large number of fleeing Al-Qaeda operatives might have found refuge in Yemen.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. has stepped up assistance to the Yemeni leader, Ali Abdallah Salih; and this included military assistance by way of weapons and training involving the U.S. Special Operations Forces. It has been said that the CIA has been operating its unmanned aircrafts over Yemen now for several months in the hopes of tracking down the fleeing Al-Qaeda besides targeting the top leaders there. It is the not the first time that senior functionaries of the Al-Qaeda have been attacked by Drones or Predators; nor it is unusual for the U.S. to be using unmanned vehicles to track down fleeing terrorists from Afghanistan. Last November, Osama bin Laden's military chief and a key organiser of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mohammed Atef, was killed near Kabul in a strike that included a Predator.

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