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U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes
(New York Times) June 8, 2011 – American jets killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. According to witnesses, four civilians were also killed in the airstrike. Weeks earlier, drone aircraft fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who the United States government has tried to kill for more than a year. Mr. Awlaki survived.
The American campaign in Yemen is led by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, and is closely coordinated with the Central Intelligence Agency. Teams of American military and intelligence operatives have a command post in Sana, the Yemeni capital, to track intelligence about militants in Yemen and plot future strikes.
Bush/Cheney and the al-Harithi/Derwish assassination in 2002
(FDL) Jan 31, 2010 – I wanted to expand on this comment, because the discussion of whether Anwar al-Awlaki is on both the JSOC and CIA kill lists or not has focused new attention on the assassination, on November 3, 2002, of Abu Ali al-Harithi and Kamal Derwish.
Greg Miller mentions the assassination in his story today.
“The CIA has carried out Predator attacks in Yemen since at least 2002, when a drone strike killed six suspected Al Qaeda operatives traveling in a vehicle across desert terrain.”
“The agency knew that one of the operatives was an American, Kamal Derwish, who was among those killed. Derwish was never on the CIA’s target list, officials said, and the strike was aimed at a senior Al Qaeda operative, Qaed Sinan Harithi, accused of orchestrating the 2000 attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole.”
Dana Priest mentions the assassination in her story on escalated operations in Yemen.
“In November 2002, a CIA missile strike killed six al-Qaeda operatives driving through the desert. The target was Abu Ali al-Harithi, organizer of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Killed with him was a U.S. citizen, Kamal Derwish, who the CIA knew was in the car.”
(The New Yorker) Dec. 23, 2002 – Sometime on Sunday, November 3rd, an unmanned American Predator reconnaissance aircraft, flying out of a base in Djibouti, fired a Hellfire missile at an automobile in Yemen that was believed to be carrying an Al Qaeda leader named Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi…
In one case, the joint-intelligence center found a group of Bedouins whose armed pickup trucks–pickups are the main mode of travel in the desert–included at least one vehicle that was mounted with a heavy machine gun. The Americans were about to hit the truck with a Predator, the Yemeni official said, “but we had someone tracking it, too. He was asked by phone, ‘Who are those people?’ He said, ‘Bedouins. Not Al Qaeda.’ “
The Yemeni official also said that the al-Harethi operation had produced valuable diplomatic information. For example, the car bearing al-Harethi and his colleagues had Saudi plates, which led investigators to believe that al-Harethi had been shuttling back and forth along Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia. According to the official, al-Harethi had obtained operating funds from Saudis. Apparently, they weren’t the only suppliers of cash for the terrorists. Al-Harethi’s last known satellite telephone call, an hour before the Predator struck, was to a number in the United Arab Emirates, an American ally that is also known to be a center of support for Muslim extremists. “Lots of money comes from the U.A.E.,” the Yemeni official said.
The killing of al-Harethi represented a dividend in the drive to track down suspected Al Qaeda terrorists who have fled Afghanistan and moved to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries, a goal that has preoccupied American intelligence since the fall of the Taliban.
It’s still not clear to me whether al-Harithi was killed twice by a JSOC/CIA drone attack …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."