Guess We need to send more drones in
Steve Watson
Al Qaeda’s number two in Yemen, Saeed al-Shihri, has released an audio recording denying he was killed in a US air strike on the country last month, meaning he has now effectively been resurrected from death twice.
In the tape, posted on a number of militant websites, al-Shihri reportedly denounces the Yemeni government for spreading “rumor about my death … as though the killing of the mujahideen (holy warriors) by America is a victory to Islam and Muslims.”
On September 9th, the AP reported that senior officials at the Yemeni president’s office believed a US drone strike had killed al-Shihri.
In the days that followed, however, anonymous Yemeni officials told the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that al-Shihri had not been slain.
In the new recording, al-Shihri states that the reports of his death were used as a cover for the fact that innocent civilians had been killed in the drone strike.
He also expresses full support for the uprising against the Syrian government, calling both Syria’s President Bashar Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ”evil leaders” - an inconvenient fact that will likely go widely unreported by US corporate media.
As with practically every other Al Qaeda boogie man before him, al-Shihri was reported captured and killed years ago.
The wikipedia entry for al-Shihri details the fact that he was first captured at the Pakistan border with Afghanistan, in December 2001, and was one of the first detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, where he was imprisoned for six years. After that time he was then repatriated to Saudi custody, later to be released, whereupon he was said to have traveled to Yemen. Not long after, the Defense Intelligence Agency published a “fact sheet” claiming that al-Shihri had “re-engaged in terrorism”.
On December 24, 2009, it was reported that al-Shihri was killed in an air strike in Yemen. Indeed, this was said to be the very same airstrike that reportedly killed the US born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (who was also later reported killed again in another airstrike in 2011).
Then on January 19, 2010, Yemen security authorities reported they had captured al-Shihri.
One month later, the Yemen Post reported that the release of an audio recording containing al-Shihri’s voice was an indication that he was still alive and operating within Yemen.
As with so many before him, al-Shihri’s true identity is mysterious and questionable at best.
As we have previously reported, every significant Al Qaeda leader appears to have been killed or reported killed several times, indicating that these people are simply names,interchangeable at the whim of the Pentagon, US Intelligence and their corporate media mouthpieces.
Much like the American born cleric al-Awlaki, al-Shihri was linked with everything from the aborted Christmas Day underwear bombing to the ink toner plane bomb plot.
Of course, while these make-believe terrorists create headlines, the real ones are receiving funding and arms in Syria and visiting the White House for functions.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/another-resurrection-for-al-qaeda-boogie-man-who-will-not-die.html
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