August 13, 2008
The Murky Relations Between the Yemen Government and al-Qaeda: Al-Qaeda Operatives Killed
Escaped al Qaeda operative Hamza al Quayti was killed in a shootout along with four other al-Qaeda operatives as well as two policemen. President Saleh said the group was planning attacks in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. A published report indicated elements within Yemeni security forces directed al Qauyti in March to launch a failed mortar attack on the US embassy and cleared the roads for his escape after the attack. The coordinates were off deliberately, the report says. Makes sense. The official regime meme is the current raid is proof Yemen is cooperating in the WOT, and deserves "greater international support and understanding" (!!money!!).
Daily Times: Yemen’s leading Al Qaeda fugitive killed in shootout....Hamza al-Quayti, one of 23 Al Qaeda militants who broke out of jail in February 2006, was killed along with four other fighters in Monday’s clash in the town of Tarim, the defence ministry website September 26 said. Two policemen were killed and three others wounded, while two militants were wounded and captured, it added. The ministry said the militants who were hiding in a house stormed by security forces had formed a cell which “planned to execute terror attacks and bombings in Yemen and abroad”. It said police found explosives and documents including Arab passports, including two belonging to Saudis. It claimed the cell was behind attacks including a suicide car bombing that killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemeni guides at a historic site in Marib, east of Sanaa, in July 2007.The group was also behind a foiled (pre-election) attack on oil installations in Marib in 2006, and a suicide car bombing last month in the Hadramaut town of Sayun, in which one policeman was killed and 17 people wounded, it added. Three of the 23 Al Qaeda escapees remain at large, five have been killed and 15 others recaptured (and re-released on loose house arrest).
So many Al-Qaeda operatives have been accused of the 2006 thwarted pre-election attacks (including both American Jaber Elbaneh and USS Cole bomber Jamal al-Badawi who are both free), but if it was al-Quayti, it makes a lot of sense when factored in with the mortar attacks, which the group claimed "credit" for and all of which missed (the March 18 mortar attack that missed the US embassy, an April 06 mortar attack on a western residential compound that caused no casualties and little damage, and an April 30 mortar attack on the Italian Embassy in Sana’a that missed and hit a neighboring Customs authority building).
On 4/22/08 three late night explosions rocked Sayoun, Hadramout at the main police center, near a wall and no one was wounded. In July, the same police station was targeted by a suicide bomber, the work of al-Quayti bargaining for (overdue?) releases of al-Qaeda members, although the attack was also claimed by by Islamic Jihad Yemen.
Al-Qauyti and the others were killed in a shoot-out with security similar to the earlier deaths of Fawaz al-Raibi and the Egyptian Diwadier, both of whom are purported to have had close relations with top Yemeni officials.
A blast from the past:
