Washington
– News outlets reporting from the U.S. have confirmed that American
forensics experts identified the body of Saeed al-Shihiri in the
wreckage of a car hit by an attack from an U.S. Unmanned aerial
vehicle on Monday, along with the bodies of 6 associates.
The
number-two ranked war lord in the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
organization, Mr. al-Shahiri was for 6 years a prisoner at Guantanamo
Bay before his release in 2007.
When
repatriated to his native Saudi Arabia, Mr. al-Shahiri left Arabia
after doing time in an Arabian reindoctrination camp, arriving in
Yemen where Al Qaeda took advantage of a power vacuum left by the
revolutionary actions of Arab Spring.
Since
that time, U.S. and Yemeni defense forces have been working to target
and kill top leaders of the terrorist organization, which has
expanded into the southern area of the impoverished nation of Yemen.
Last
year, in a similar rocket attack launched from an American UAV,
American forces killed U.S.-born Anwar Awlaki, who was suspected of
participating in an Al Qaeda plot to down an airliner in Detroit, and
masterminded the attempted mid-air explosions of several jet cargo
planes in 2010.
Al
Qaeda has attacked the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, killing 17 sailors with a
small boat rigged as an improvised explosive device that blew a hole
in the ship's hull as she lay at a pier taking on fuel. In 2002, Al
Qaeda operatives attacked a French oil tanker, sinking her off the
coast of Yemen.
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