Regional second-in-command of Al Qaeda killed in Yemen

WASHINGTON: A Saudi national freedby U.S. authorities from detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whothen became second-in-command of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, was killed in Yemen, a Yemeni government website said.

The Yemeni Ministry of Defense website said Said al-Shehri

was killed on Monday, along with six other militants, in what it

called a "qualitative operation" by Yemen's army in the remote

Hadramout province in eastern Yemen. It gave no further details.

There were conflicting reports on how Shehri died. A Yemeni

security source said Shehri was killed in an operation last

Wednesday in the Hadramout that was thought to have been carried

out by a U.S. drone, rather than the Yemeni military.The source said another Saudi and an Iraqi national were

among the others killed. U.S. officials declined to comment on

whether a drone strike had occurred.

U.S. officials described Shehri as one of the most important

al Qaeda-linked militants to be released from the Guantanamo

detention facility, where he was taken in January 2002 after

being handed over by Pakistan to U.S. authorities.

A former officer in Saudi Arabia's internal security force,

Shehri allegedly joined al Qaeda and helped to facilitate the

movements of Saudi militants seeking to travel to Afghanistan

via Iran, according to a classified Pentagon report made public

by WikiLeaks.

According to the Pentagon document, Shehri was "assessed to

be a HIGH risk" prisoner because "he is likely to pose a threat

to the U.S., its interests and allies."

A U.S. official familiar with the case said Shehri was one

of numerous Saudi militants at Guantanamo released by the

administration of President George W. Bush under heavy pressure

from Saudi authorities and the U.S. court system.

Shehri was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and put through

a Saudi rehabilitation program for militants.

But he later returned to the battlefield in Yemen, and

became AQAP's number two, leading one U.S. official to

characterize him as a "poster child for recidivism." Shehri was

wanted by Yemeni authorities for a suspected role in a U.S.

embassy attack in 2008.

AQAP, which has planned attacks on international targets

including airliners, is described by Washington, which has

repeatedly used unmanned drones to target its members, as

perhaps al Qaeda's most dangerous and innovative affiliate.  Residents of the Wadi al-Ain district where last Wednesday's

drone attack occurred said they believed from their contacts

with Islamist fighters in the area that Shehri had died then,

when missiles struck a house where they were meeting.

"There was a group of people from the Ansar al-Sharia group

who were holding a meeting - Shehri was one of them and there

were foreigners there too," said Elwi Suleiman. Ansar al-Sharia

is one of a number of Yemeni militant groups linked to al Qaeda.

There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy in

the accounts given by Yemeni authorities and locals.

LAWLESSNESS ALARMS ALLIES

Yemen's government is trying to re-establish order after an

uprising pushed out veteran ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh in

February, but faces threats from Islamist militants, southern

secessionists and a Shi'ite rebel movement in the north.

Protests and factional fighting have allowed AQAP to seize

swathes of south Yemen, and Shi'ite Muslim Houthi rebels to

carve out their own domain in the north.

The lawlessness has alarmed the United States and Yemen's

neighbor Saudi Arabia, the top world oil exporter, which view

the impoverished state as a new front line in their war on al

Qaeda and its affiliates.

Washington backed a military offensive in May to recapture

areas of Abyan province. Militants struck back with a series of

bombings and assassinations.

A southern Yemeni politician who returned from exile

survived an assassination attempt on Monday, a security source

said. Last week, 10 civilians were killed in an apparent drone

attack that missed its target or was based on wrong information.