Arabian Al-Qaida’s Number Two Is Dead

A Saudi who was freed by U.S. authorities from detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, only to become second in command of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has died after being wounded by Yemeni security forces, a Yemeni security official said on Friday.

Said al-Shehri suffered injuries in an operation by the security apparatus on November 28 in the northern province of Saada, a member of Yemen’s supreme security committee told the Yemeni state news agency.

He subsequently fell into a coma and died, the source said, without saying exactly when.

“He was buried by al-Qaida in an unknown location as a strategy to keep up the morale of its members,” the source, who was not named, was quoted as saying.

It was not the first time Yemen had announced Shehri’s death. In September, the Ministry of Defense said he had been killed in an army operation, only for him to issue an audiotape a month later.

But whereas in September Saudi Arabia declined to confirm the death, this week Saudi-owned media have reported that Shehri is dead.

U.S. officials described Shehri as one of the most important al-Qaida-linked terrorists to be released from Guantanamo, where he was taken in January 2002 after Pakistan handed him to U.S. authorities.

Shehri, a former officer in Saudi Arabia’s internal security force, allegedly joined al-Qaida and helped to facilitate the movements of Saudi terrorists seeking to travel to Afghanistan via Iran, according to a classified Pentagon report made public by WikiLeaks.

This article appeared in print on page 2 of the January 25th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.