Religious and tribal leaders try to rescue army from Al Qaeda

Religious and tribal leaders try to rescue army from Al Qaeda 

By Nasser Arrabyee,09/05/2012

Al Qaeda comitted a new masscare against Yemeni army in retaliation for a top leader who was assassinated by a US drone hours  after the newly elected President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi vowed to cleanse his country of  terrorists. 

To help help the repeatedly disappointed army, tribal and religious leaders from Hadi's tribes came to his Palace Monday May 7th, 2012, to show support against Al Qaeda which controls many areas in the south particularly Abyan, Hadi's  home province. 

Mohammed Al Shaddadi, deputy speaker of Parliament, originally from Abyan, came with representatives of tribesmen from all districts of Abyan. The cleric Ahmed Al Mualem, came with a group of clerics and mosque speakers from Abyan. 

 The two groups, who separately met Hadi, had different things to do for helping the government to defeat Al Qaeda.  The tribesmen agreed with the President to form popular committee to help the army fight Al Qaeda like the committees already working in Lawdar district of the same province. 

"Our ami is to deport all the foreigners from our areas, and then help the army to control," said Kasem Khaleel, one of the tribal leaders who attended the meeting.  

"We would not allow any foreigner to stay in our villages and districts, and when we are done with this, we will call our people who are with Al Qaeda to surrender the heavy weapons by hook or by crook," he said. 

"When they are like us, without heavy weapons, then dialogue can be held with them, and this is what was agreed upon in the meeting," Khaleel said. 
The religious leaders would help to convince as many as possible of Al Qaeda supporters and sympathizes thoughtfully. "We will deliver to them the conditions of the government to stop the war on them, and we will do our best to convince them to give up and return to normal citizens," said  Abdullah Noman, one of the clerics who attended the meeting. 

On Sunday May 6th, 2012, one day after Hadi's speech in which vowed to defeat Al Qaeda, the most wanted senior leader of Al Qaeda was  killed by a US drone attack  in the souhern province of Shabwah. In retaliation , at least 22 soldiers were killed and 25 others detained in a  surprise attack on two military positions at the outskirts of Zinjubar. 

Al Qaeda implemented this attack almost in the same place where it attacked last March 4th, killing 185 soldiers and injuring 200 others and detaining 73.
The US officials said the assassinated Al Qaeda leader Fahd Al Qusu was plotting to bomb an airline over US in early May which marks the first anniversary of assassinating Osama Bin Laden.

The Al Qaeda senior leader Fahd Al Qusu was buried very early morning Monday in his village in Wadi Al Abyadh, Rafadh, Saeed district in Shabwah province, said the tribal leader Al Ahmar Salfoh, who attended the funeral and burial. 

After the burial, the local tribal leaders decided not to make condolence ceremony in the same area of Rafadh in fear of more US drone attacks, according to Salfoh.

So, the  condolence ceremony was held  in Ataq, the capital of Shabwah, where the cousins of the slain Fahd Al Qusu are based.

The tribal leader said that Fahd Al Qusu arrived in Rafadh on Sunday at 10 am  and stayed in the mosque nearby his house where he had lunch with his friend Nasser Salem Ali Al Akdam. " airplanes  ( drones) were flying over the area all the time since he arrived," said Salfoh.

At about 5 pm they started to walk out from the mosque in the direction of the farm of Fahd in Wadi Al Abyadh which was only 1 km away.

At about 5:30 pm and when Al Qusu and his friend Al Kdam were about to arrive the farm, two missile were fired at them killing both of them. " One of the missiles hit Fahd directly cutting his body into pieces," said Salfoh.

"But the dead body of his friend Al Akdam was found as a whole, but also completely burnt," he said. 

Fahd Al Qusu has two sons and one daughter who are living now with the mother in Azzan in the border of Hudrmout. And his father and mother and brothers and sisters are living in Al Buraikah, Aden. His cousins are living in Ataq, the capital of Shabwah. 

US has been hunting Fahd Al Qusu for about twelve   years . Al Qusu was involved in the USS Cole bombing in 2000 when 17  sailors where killed. Al Qusu was the one who was assigned to film the bombing but he overslept and did not film. 

In his last press interview last month, Al Qusu said   they would continue fighting to restore "their" revolution that was hijacked by the political parties, referring to the protests for change in Yemen.

"The situation in Yemen has not changed, it is still as it was,...the parties hijacked the revolution of the Muslim people against the tyrant," said Al Qusu.

The new President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi is still a doll and the same troops  are still killing Mujahideen, he said. 

When he was killed on Sunday May 6, Al Qusu came to Rafadh from Azzan to negotiate with tribal medaitors about releasing Swiss woman and Saudi diplomat who were kidnapped by Al Qaeda last  March.
 
One of the  local trbal leaders who who mediates told the Weekly that Fahd Al Qusu put the conditions for relaseing the two hostages. 

"Before Fahd Al Qusu died, he told me that Al Qaeda wanted 15 million dollars for releasing the Swiss woman, and they want eight women to be released from Saudi prisons to release the Saudi diplomat," said the tribal leader who preferred not to be named.