Qaeda calls for attacks inside United States.

Qaeda calls for attacks inside United States.

The Nation | 13 Sep 2013 :: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged small-scale attacks inside the United States to "bleed America economically", adding he hoped eventually to see a more significant strike, according to the SITE monitoring service.

In an audio speech released online a day after the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 strikes, Zawahri said attacks "by one brother or a few of the brothers" would weaken the U.S. economy by triggering big spending on security, SITE reported.

Western counter-terrorism chiefs have warned that radicalized "lone wolves" who might have had no direct contact with al Qaeda posed as great a risk as those who carried out complex plots like the 9/11 attacks.

"We should bleed America economically by provoking it to continue in its massive expenditure on its security, for the weak point of America is its economy, which has already begun to stagger due to the military and security expenditure," he said.

Keeping America in such a state of tension and anticipation only required a few disparate attacks "here and there", he said

"As we defeated it in the gang warfare in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan, so we should follow it with ...war on its own land. These disparate strikes can be done by one brother or a few of the brothers."

At the same time, Muslims should seize any opportunity to land "a large strike" on the United States, even if this took years of patience.

The Sept 11, 2011 attacks, in which hijacked airliners were flown into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington and a Pennsylvania field, triggered a global fight against al Qaeda extremists and their affiliates. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.

In his audio speech, Zawahri said Muslims should refuse to buy goods from America and its allies, as such spending only helped to fund U.S. military action in Muslim lands.(Courtesy:The Nation)

Al-Qaeda set up anti-drone cells, reveal secret U.S. documents.

Al-Qaeda set up anti-drone cells, reveal 

secret U.S. documents.

A banner protesting U.S. drone attacks on Yemen earlier this year. (AFP)

Al Arabia  | AFP | 04 Sep 2013 :: Al-Qaeda’s leaders have been bolstering their anti-drone efforts, setting up cells of engineers to shoot down, disable or hijack U.S. drones, the Washington Post reported late Tuesday classified documents.

The militant leadership is “hoping to exploit the technological vulnerabilities of a weapons system that has inflicted huge losses against the terrorist network,” the Post said online.

“Although there is no evidence that Al-Qaeda has forced a drone crash or successfully interfered with flight operations, U.S. intelligence officials have closely tracked the group’s persistent efforts to develop a counterdrone strategy since 2010,” the report said, citing the secret documents.

The newspaper also reported that al-Qaeda commanders are keen to achieve “a technological breakthrough (that) could curb the U.S. drone campaign, which has killed an estimated 3,000 people over the past decade.”

Drone strikes have forced al-Qaeda operatives to limit their movements in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and other places.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

Al-Qaeda in Yemen denies U.S. claims on attack plots.

Al-Qaeda in Yemen denies U.S. claims 

on attack plots.

Yemeni security forces at a checkpoint in Sana’a. Embassies were
 closed during August due to allegations that the al-Qaeda was
planning attacks in Yemen. (File Photo: AFP)

Dubai | AFP | 27 Aug 2013 :: Al-Qaeda in Yemen has denied U.S. allegations it is plotting massive attacks that prompted the closure of Western missions in the country this month, in a statement posted online.

The extremist network also denied reports confirmed by Yemen’s President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi that U.S. intelligence services had intercepted a conversation between al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, head of the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

“Hadi repeated the nonsense and propaganda published by U.S. intelligence on telephone calls between jihadist leaders to justify the US plot to kill Muslims in Yemen through continued raids,” AQAP said in the statement posted on jihadist Internet forums.

Hadi had “claimed the jihadists were plotting to target oil terminals in the country using bomb-laden trucks,” said AQAP.

“We deny what he said and regard it as an attempt to justify US criminal practices.”

“We also affirm our concern... in preserving the blood of Muslims,” the statement added.

A source close to Hadi quoted the Yemeni leader as saying Friday that in the alleged conversation between the al-Qaeda leaders Wuhayshi told Zawahiri he would be hearing of something “that will change the course of history”.

Hadi and U.S. President Barack Obama had discussed the matter at the White House on August 1, according to the same source.

On August 4, the United States shut 19 of its consulates and embassies in the Arab and Muslim countries amid what American officials said was a threat of an imminent al-Qaeda attack.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)Read More>>>

American al-Qaeda militant urges attacks on U.S. diplomats.

American al-Qaeda militant urges attacks on U.S. diplomats.

American al Qaeda militant Adam Gadahn has called for more
 attacks on Western diplomats in the Arab world. (File Photo: Reuters)

Dubai | Reuters | 18 Aug 2013 ::  An American al-Qaeda militant has called for more attacks on Western diplomats in the Arab world, praising the killers of the U.S. ambassador to Libya on September 11 last year, a U.S.-based monitoring group said on Sunday.

Western nations shut embassies across the Middle East and North Africa early this month, after a warning of a possible militant attack. Many have reopened, and Britain said its Yemen embassy would open on Sunday after being closed for 12 days.

Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam with a $1 million U.S. price on his head, appealed to wealthy Muslims to offer militants rewards to kill ambassadors in the region, citing bounty set for killing the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Washington-based SITE monitoring group said.

“These prizes have a great effect in instilling fear in the hearts of our cowardly enemies,” Gadahn said in the 39-minute video recording in Arabic posted on websites used by Islamist militants, according to SITE.

“They also encourage hesitant individuals to carry out important and great deeds in the path of Allah,” he said, in an English transcript on SITE.

The Yemen-based branch of al-Qaeda last year offered 3 kg (106 ounces) of gold for the killing of the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa or 5 million rials ($23,350) for an American soldier in the impoverished Arab state.

U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in Libya’s Benghazi in 2012 when Islamist gunmen attacked the U.S. consulate during a protest by a mob angry over a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

Gadahn has called for attacks on U.S. diplomats before. In August 2007, he said al-Qaeda would target diplomats and embassies in retaliation for U.S.-led military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The FBI has been trying to question Gadahn - believed to be in Pakistan - since 2004 and the U.S. government has offered up to $1 million in cash for information leading to his arrest.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

Al-Qaeda’s top Yemen operative leaves blueprint for waging jihad.

Al-Qaeda’s top Yemen operative leaves blueprint for waging jihad.

Nasser al-Wahishi’s outline of terror tactics precedes by a year recently intercepted communications that prompted US embassy closures

TIMBUKTU |  Mali | AP | 10 Aug 2013 :: A year before he was caught on an intercept discussing the terror plot that prompted this week’s sweeping closure of US embassies abroad, al-Qaeda’s top operative in Yemen laid out his blueprint for how to wage jihad in letters sent to a fellow terrorist.

In what reads like a lesson plan, Nasser al-Wahishi provides a step-by-step assessment of what worked and what didn’t in Yemen. But in the never-before-seen correspondence, the man at the center of the latest terror threat barely mentions the extremist methods that have transformed his organization into al-Qaeda’s most dangerous branch.

The perhaps surprising hearts-and-minds approach advocated by the 30-something Wahishi, who spent years as Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary, is a sign of a broader shift within al-Qaeda. After its failure in Iraq, say experts who were shown the correspondence, the terror network realized that it is not enough to win territory: They must also learn to govern it if they hope to hold it.

“People in the West view al-Qaeda as only a terrorist organization, and it certainly is that … but the group itself is much broader, and it is doing much more,” says Gregory Johnsen, a scholar at Princeton University whose book, “The Last Refuge,” charts the rise of al-Qaeda in Yemen. “The group sees itself as an organization that can be a government.”

The correspondence from al-Wahishi to Algerian national Abdelmalek Droukdel is part of a cache of documents found earlier this year by the AP in buildings in Timbuktu, which until January were occupied by al-Qaeda’s North African branch. The letters are dated May 21 and Aug. 6, 2012, soon after al-Wahishi’s army in Yemen was forced to retreat from the territory it had seized amid an uprising against long-time Yemeni ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.(Courtesy:The Times of Israel)Read More>>>

US drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes: Yemen official.

US drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes: Yemen official.

File photo shows a Predator B unmanned aircraft taxis at the
 Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas. Two U.S. drone strike
 killed a total of nine suspected al-Qaida militants on Thursday,
 Aug. 8, 2013, a Yemeni military official said, the sixth and seventh
such attacks in less than two weeks as the Arab nation
is on high alert against terrorism.

YEMEN | AP | 09 AUG 2013 ::  The U.S. has sharply escalated its drone war in Yemen, with military officials in the Arab country reporting 34 suspected al-Qaida militants killed in less than two weeks, including three strikes on Thursday alone in which a dozen died.

The action against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen branch is known, comes amid a global terror alert issued by Washington. One Mideast official says the uptick is due to its leaders leaving themselves more vulnerable by moving from their normal hideouts toward areas where they could carry out attacks.

The U.S. and Britain evacuated diplomatic staff from the capital of Sanaa this week after learning of a threatened attack that prompted Washington to close temporarily 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa.

On Thursday, the U.S. State Department warned Americans not to travel to Pakistan and ordered nonessential government personnel to leave the U.S. Consulate in Lahore because of a specific threat to that diplomatic mission.

Thursday’s first reported drone attack hit a car carrying suspected militants in the district of Wadi Ubaidah, about 175 kilometers (109 miles) east of Sanaa, and killed six, a security official said.

Badly burned bodies lay beside their vehicle, according to the official. Five of the dead were Yemenis, while the sixth was believed to be of another Arab nationality, he said.

The second drone attack killed three alleged militants in the al-Ayoon area of Hadramawt province in the south, the official said. The third, also in Hadramawt province, killed three more suspected militants in the al-Qutn area, he added.(Courtesy:The Hindu)

Al-Qaeda says No. 2 in Yemen killed in US drone strike.

Saudi-born Saeed al-Shihri, a former detainee at Guantanamo, killed on unspecified date, according to terrorist website

An American MQ-9 Predator drone (illustrative
 photo: CC BY AN HONORABLE GERMAN, Flickr)

SANAA | Yemen | AP | 17 Jul 2013 ::   The Yemen-based branch of al-Qaeda says a US drone strike has killed a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who rose to become the group’s No. 2 figure.

The announcement, posted on militant websites, gave no date for the death of Saudi-born Saeed al-ShihriIn January, Yemen’s official SABA news agency had reported that al-Shihri died of wounds from a drone strike three months earlier.

The monitoring group SITE said Wednesday that al-Shihri was eulogized in the video by a senior official in the terrorist group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Al-Shihri, also known as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi, fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in Guantanamo. He was returned to Saudi Arabia in late 2007 and later fled to Yemen to join the al-Qaeda branch there.(Courtesy:The Times of Israel)