Top Al Qaeda leader buried after attacked by US drone

By Nasser Arrabyee, 07/05/2012

The Al Qaeda senior leader Fahd Al Qusu was buried very early morning Monday in his village in Wadi Al Abyadh, Rafadh, Saeed district in Shabwah province, said the tribal leader Al Ahmar Salfoh, who attended the funeral and burial. 

After the burial, the local tribal leaders decided not to make condolence ceremony in the same area of Rafadh in fear of more US drone attacks, according to Salfoh.

So, the  condolence ceremony is to be held today Monday in Ataq, the capital of Shabwah, where the cousins of the slain Fahd Al Qusu are based.

The tribal leader said that Fahd Al Qusu arrived in Rafadh on Sunday at 10 am  and stayed in the mosque nearby his house where he had lunch with his friend Nasser Salem Ali Al Akdam. " airplanes were flying over the area all the time since he arrived," said Salfoh.

At about 5 pm they started to walk out from the mosque in the direction of the farm of Fahd in Wadi Al Abyadh which was only 1 km away.

At about 5:30 pm and when Al Qusu and his friend Al Kdam were about to arrive the farm, two missile were fired at them killing both of them. " One of the missiles hit Fahd directly cutting his body into pieces," said Salfoh.

"But the dead body of his friend Al Akdam was found as a whole, but also completely burnt," he said. 

Fahd Al Qusu has two sons and one daughter who are living now with the mother in Azzan in the border of Hudrmout. And his father and mother and brothers and sisters are living in Al Buraikah, Aden. His cousins are living in Ataq, the capital of Shabwah. 

An Al Qaeda top leader was killed with three other terrorists in a US drone attack in the southern province of Shabwah late Sunday, said sources from the site of the attack.

Fahd Al Qusu, the third most wanted for US after bin Laden and Anwar Al Awlaki, was killed with three other operatives when US drone attacked them in the area of Rafadh, in the southern province of Shabwah. US has been searching for Fahd Al Qusu for about twelve   years . 

Al Qusu was involved in the USS Cole bombing in 2000 when 19 sailors where killed. Al Qusu was the one who was assigned by to film the bombing but he overslept and did not film. 

In his last press interview last month, Al Qusu said   they would continue fighting to restore "their" revolution that was hijacked by the political parties, referring to the protests for change in Yemen.

"The situation in Yemen has not changed, it is still as it was,...the parties hijacked the revolution of the Muslim people against the tyrant," said Fahd Al Qusu, one of the top leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular AQAP).

The new President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi is still a doll and the same troops  are still killing Mujahideen, he said. 

"So, for us, we will not stop Jihad, until Islamic Shariah becomes the ruler," said Al Qusu in an interview conducted with by the Aden-based journalist Anis Mansour, who sent some quotes to 'Nasser Arrabyee' website.

Al Qusu, who is wanted for the CIA for involving in the USS Cole bombing in 2000 in Aden harbor, said that the tribesmen who are fighting them now in Lawdar are only "mercenaries". 

" It is the mercenaries of the Lawdar committees who started the war against our Mujahideen," Said Al Qusu in an obvious reference to the Anti-Al Qaeda popular committees in Lawdar, where fierce battles have been going on for about one month now. 

The Al Qaeda senior leader denied the reports about hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters were killed during the ongoing war in Lawdar over the few last weeks.

"Only 11 Mujahideen won the martyrdom, some of them are from Mujahideen of Lawdar," he said. 

Al Qaeda asked for 15 million dollars as a ransom for releasing a Swiss woman, said a source close to the kidnappers on Sunday. 

And Al Qaeda also asked for the release of eight women in  Saudi prisons in return for releasing the Saudi diplomat. Al Qaeda kidnapped the Swiss woman and Saudi diplomat last March.

Earlier on Sunday, the deputy minister of interior Mohammed Abdullah Al Kawsi, said  the two hostages the Saudi and the Swiss would be released within 24 hours. 

" What I know is Al Qaeda wants 15 million dollars for releasing the Swiss woman, and they want the release of eight women from prisons of Saudi Arabia for them to release the Saudi diplomat," said one the rival leaders in Shabwah who is in contact with the kidnappers. 

"This is what they told me yesterday, if the hostages are released today as Al Kawsi said this means that their conditions were met," said the tribal leader.

Meanwhile, two American military airplanes arrived Saturday in  Al Anad Base in Lahj province, with Marines and equipments on board, said military sources Monday.

A group of well-trained snipers arrived in Lawdar to participate in the battles against Al Qaeda which started  early last month, the sources said.