MESSAGE
| DATE | 2005-08-20 |
| FROM | From: "Steve Milo"
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Good News from the Middle East
|
How convenient that they kills him only recently.
Steve M
>
> Middle East
>
>
> August 19, 2005
>
> Al-Qaeda chief killed in police gunfight
> By Michael Theodoulou
>
> THE leader of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia was killed in a gun battle with
> police in the holy city of Medina hours before a visit by King Abdullah,
> the newly installed monarch.
>
> Saleh al-Awfi, who once stored the decapitated head of an American
> hostage in his family fridge, was one of the most wanted men in Saudi
> Arabia. His death, confirmed in a statement by the Saudi Interior
> Ministry read on state television, means that only one terrorist from a
> list of twenty-six most-wanted men issued by the authorities in
> December, 2003, is still at large. The rest have been killed or
> captured.
>
>
>
> Al-Awfi, a former used-car dealer and prison guard, was in hiding in a
> residential area near the venerated Mosque of the Prophet, the site of
> the tomb of Muhammad, which King Abdullah visited for prayers.
>
> He was one of two members of the “deviant group†— official terminology
> for al-Qaeda — killed when security forces returned fire as they tracked
> the terrorists in Medina, the ministry said.
>
> Security forces also killed two other militants and arrested at least
> ten others in raids in the capital, Riyadh, and in Medina, the statement
> added.
>
> In a letter posted on the internet this year, al-Awfi vowed to send a
> steady stream of fighters into Iraq to join insurgents fighting US
> forces there.
>
> There were reports in April that he had died in a gunfight along with a
> dozen other al-Qaeda militants. Among those confirmed dead at the time
> was Abdulkarim al-Mejjati, a Moroccan terrorist who, it is believed, had
> links to some of those involved in last month’s London bombings.
>
> Al-Awfi’s death would be a further blow to militants loyal to Osama bin
> Laden, the Saudi-born leader of al-Qaeda. Their network in the kingdom
> has been weakened by a determined security crackdown by the authorities
> in the past two years.
>
> Analysts believe that the accession of King Abdullah — a pious figure
> popular with his conservative Muslim subjects, who assumed the throne
> after King Fahd, his half-brother, died this month — could increase
> public support for the battle against al-Qaeda.
>
>
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