Yemen Says It Attacked a Meeting of Al Qaeda

Yemen Says It Attacked a Meeting of Al Qaeda
By JACK HEALY and SCOTT SHANE
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/middleeast/25yemen.html?th&emc=th


Yemeni fighter jets, acting on intelligence provided in part by the United States, struck what the Yemeni government said was a meeting of operatives from Al Qaeda early Thursday morning, and officials suggested that a radical cleric linked to the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings might have been among the 30 people killed.

A statement by the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said the target of the airstrike was a gathering of “scores” of Qaeda members from Yemen and other countries, including the network’s two top leaders in Yemen, in a remote corner of in the country’s south. The statement said the radical cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, was “presumed to be at the site.”

It could take days for investigators to sift through the rubble to identify the dead, and intelligence officials in the United States could not immediately confirm whether Mr. Awlaki, who was born in the United States, or any Qaeda members were among those killed.

Yemen, which has long been a haven for terrorists, has been carrying out strikes that appear to be directed against Al Qaeda’s growing presence.

The group, whose regional affiliate is known as Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, has mounted frequent attacks against foreign embassies and Yemeni officials in the past two years, adding to security threats in Yemen that include an armed rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.

There is no indication that the various insurgents opposed to Yemen’s government are cooperating, but the concurrent crises have weakened the state’s ability to react.

Yemeni security forces carried out airstrikes and ground raids against suspected Qaeda hide-outs last week with what American officials described as “intelligence and firepower” supplied by the United States. The assaults were Yemen’s widest offensive against jihadists in years. Government forces hit bases in Abyan, a lawless, mountainous area in the south, as well as in the city of Arhab and the capital, Sana.

The airstrikes on Thursday were aimed at a large group of Qaeda operatives who had gathered in the southern province of Shabwa to plan attacks against the Yemeni government in retaliation for the offensive last week, the Yemeni Embassy statement said.

Yemeni officials said they had made targets of the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, and his deputy, Said Ali al-Shihri, who were believed to be at the meeting with Mr. Awlaki.

Mr. Shihri was held for five years in the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and after his release in 2007 went through a Saudi rehabilitation program. But he joined Al Qaeda after his return to Yemen, a notable failure for the Saudi program, which American officials admire.

Although Mr. Awlaki, 38, has not been accused of planting bombs or carrying out terrorist attacks himself, his online sermons champion a radicalized vision of Islam, and he has been linked to numerous terrorism suspects, including Nidal Malik Hasan, the American Army major who faces murder charges in the shooting deaths of 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas in November.

Major Hasan and the American-born cleric exchanged about 20 e-mail messages, and shortly after the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as a hero.

In an interview posted Wednesday on the Web site of Al Jazeera, Mr. Awlaki said Major Hasan had asked in his first e-mail message about what Islamic law dictated about “Muslim soldiers who serve in the American military and kill their colleagues.”

Mr. Awlaki also praised the killings at Fort Hood, saying, “working in the American military to fight Muslims is a betrayal of Islam.”

Jack Healy reported from New York, and Scott Shane from Washington. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.