Al Qaeda issued a statement saying its operational chief and CFO, the Egyptian born Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, also known as Saeed al-Masri, was killed by a missile fired from a drone in Pakistan some time in this last two weeks. A Pakistani intelligence official says Yazid was considered the operational commander for all Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Yazid was killed while staying at a Taliban compound in the small village of Mohammed Khel, located in the Al Qaeda friendly North Waziristan region of Pakistan. Bill Roggio reports that Yazid was killed on May 21, when drones fired four missiles into the village.
Yazid is the most senior Al Qaeda leader to be killed in the drone bombing campaign, Roggio says, and it will be hard for the terrorist group to replace him. He put Yazid’s name at the top of the long list of senior Al Qaeda and Taliban figures killed by the CIA operated drones.
The 9–11 Commission identified Yazid as Al Qaeda’s “chief financial manager,” responsible for handling all payouts from the terrorist group’s coffers. We can presume he also had extensive ties with many sympathetic and wealthy donors located in the Gulf Arab states.
– Greg Grant
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Score one for the good guys!
P.S. first!
love em or hate em, the drones seem to work.
Bad boys, bad boys, what'cha going to do? What'cha going to do when the drones come for you?
Love the UASs but there is something else here that deserves recognition…the intelligence that led to being able to target this guy. Seems we're getting better at developing solid location intel on a lot of the baddies in this region.
Kudos to whoever is developing this intel and passing it on to the UASs for prosecution, keep up the good work!
I drop just a couple of thoughts.
First of all that the fact that Al Qaeda feels the need to announce the death of a coordinator (sorry, but I cannot call Officer a terrorist), is a warning of how much is organized and still dangerous, despite of all our efforts.
Second thought is that love them or not, drones are the future.
Personally I think that is a kind of fight so impersonal that helps to do the work without remorses: just a surgical operation were possible, rebalancing the effort in terms of lives and costs of those operations.
Some (and I somewhat agree with them) that F35 will be the last manned fighter. I don't feel this is the moment of this change, but IMHO path is started.
I heard this guy referred to as "Al Qaeda's #3" today. Good god, how many times are we going to kill the #3 guy in the AQ hierarchy? #3 in their chain of command has to be among the most dangerous jobs in the world, as opposed to #2 or #1, which have proven, up to this point, to be completely safe.
Actually its "Al Qaeda lieutenants" and "taliban commanders" that we kill by the bushel. This particular guy is the no-kidding AQ #3 who we identified as a player around the time of 9/11.
something to keep in mind.
Every Alqueda leader has a following. Friends, family & home town where he is known.
Their children as of now may be no threat. But they grow up with the history that their father was slain by us. And that his homeland is now occupied by us.
So even if we kill all their leaders. In about 10-15 years(if that) their children will be coming.
We won't even be in Iraq by then. And hopefully not in force in Afghanistan. So chances are they will revenge on the nearest foreigner they find or they will come here.
In all of this war, the fundamentals are not being addressed.They won't surrender even down to the last man… They cannot be fully eliminated as some have even had children since the war began.
They cannot take us out without nuclear suicide bombers or a biological attack that might only wipe out human kind.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for drones despite mistakes. They declared war on us & not playing by any rules.
yeah, weve got a hell of a problem down the road. hearts and minds just doesnt work in this situation.
The drone campaign is a disaster – but it will take a US city lit by a Pakistani nuke for Americans to realize it. Then they will ask – how could we have pushed Pakistan into fundamentalism, how could we have been so stupid.
I agree, the drones just don't have the payload to do the job properly. Fully loaded B-52s and B-1s would be more effective in taking out the Taliban soldiers as well as its leadership. As for the Pakistani nuke hitting a US city, lay off smoking hashish: It fries brain cells.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/02/un.targeted.kill…
This article points directly to this subject.
Correct my facts if wrong but didn't Alqueada declare turned against us orginally because of our CIA international assasins?
If UN declares drones illegal as we use them , Iran, Taliban and Alqueda will only have more to celebrate and use against us.
You are pathetic. Think of our young war dead at the hands of these filthy Arabs and Chechens. They would shoot you in the face and piss on your corpse. Get real. Get mad. Get Some!
Get Some!