Al-Qaeda said its No. 3 leader and Osama bin Laden’s one-time top money man, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, has been killed along with several family members, in what would be a major blow to the global terror network.
US monitoring groups said the death of Yazid, who was the leader of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and its liaison with the Taliban for three years, was announced by the group in a message to jihadist Web sites on Monday.
“We have strong reason to believe that’s true and that [Yazid] was killed recently in Pakistan’s tribal areas,” a US official said. “In terms of counterterrorism, this would be a big victory.”
Yazid, one of a number of Egyptians in the higher echelons of al-Qaeda, was a founding member of the network and a former treasurer to bin Laden who was accused of channeling money to some of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers.
Yazid, also known as Sheikh Said al-Masri, would be one of the highest profile al-Qaeda leaders killed since US President Barack Obama took office.
“Al-Masri was the group’s chief operating officer, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning,” the US official said.
“He was also the organization’s prime conduit to bin Laden and [al-Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-] Zawahiri,” he said. “He was key to al-Qaeda’s command and control.”
The al-Qaeda message carried by the SITE group that monitors Islamist Web sites did not say where or when Yazid was killed other than to speak of his “martyrdom.”
It said his wife, three of his daughters, his granddaughter, and other men, women and children were killed along with him.
“His death will only be a severe curse by his life upon the infidels. The response is near,” the message translated by SITE said.
Some US media reports said Yazid was killed in a US drone strike in the Pakistani tribal areas on the Afghan border, where the US has been waging a covert drone war against militants in areas outside direct government control.
“Though these terrorists remain extremely dangerous and determined to strike at the United States, the removal from the battlefield of top leaders like al-Masri is further proof that the tribal areas are not quite the safe haven al-Qaeda and its allies thought them to be,” a US official said.
Yazid, 54, was among those whose assets were frozen by the US Treasury in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS