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Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's media house released a new video about the assassination of Major Mohammed Ben Rabeesh al-Kaalan, head of the Security Directorate in Marib province last October. The 10-minute video produced by Sada al Malahem was entitled “Rabeesh and the Just Punishment" and opens with an introduction that shed some light on al Kaalan and the reason why al Qaeda decided to kill him.

The group claims in the video that al Kaalan was a bitter enemy of the militants and a strong ally to the "apostates." He collaborated closely with the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, they claim, and used to “regulary receive the U.S. ambassador to Yemen in his home.”

The group blamed the man for the death of former al Qaeda leader Abu Ali al Harthi, a good friend of al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, and one of the men behind the attack on USS Cole in 2000.

Al Harthi was killed back in 2002 in a U.S. drone attack on al Qaeda positions in Maarib desert, 160 kms northern the Yemeni capital. The group also held al Kaalan responsible for the killing of four militants killed by Yemeni security forces in 2007.

The video finally shows pictures of the booby-trapped package that was sent to al Kaalan in October 2008. The pictures show that it was designed to explode when the box was opened. Al Kaalan opened it on the morning of October 20th and was killed by the explosion.

The group warned other Yemenis collaborating either with the Yemeni President Ali Saleh's regime or with the U.S., that they would meet the same fate if they conspired against the militants.

The leader of the group that kidnapped a Dutch man and his wife in Yemen announced that the two hostages are being treated well and offered to trade them with Yemeni security officers and soldiers who had attacked him a year ago. Tribal leader Ali Nasser al Siraji said the two hostages were his “guests" and assured they were being "fed and well looked after.”
Al Siraji explained that the kidnapping of the two hostages came in response to an attack launched against his convoy in April 2008, which badly wounded six of his guards. He accused the security chief in Maarib Mohammed al Ghadra and the head of central security Mohammed Omar of standing behind the attack and demanded that they be handed over to him.

AP:
The militant group Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula is reportedly claiming responsibility for an attack earlier this month in Yemen that killed four South Korean tourists and their Yemeni driver.
(Read the article)

In a new audio tape obtained by CBS News, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula slammed Arab rulers and urged members of Arab armed forces to turn their weapons against their regimes and not against their own people.

“Why did you not harm the Jews and instead harmed your own people?” Abu Bassir Bin Nasser al Weheishy said. “The worst sins you commit is allowing the Christians’ warships to sail through your waters with the blessing of your rulers, to go and kill Muslims in Gaza and Baghdad,” he added.
In the 20-minute audio statement, al Weheishy accused Arab leaders of siding with “the Crusaders,” who he says have now surrounded the Arab Peninsula from the sea.

He also addressed Yemeni tribes, warning them against “a plot” by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s forces aimed at having them leave off their weapons in order for “the traitor agents and their Crusader allies to be able to humiliate them.”

“Prepare yourselves with anti-tank devices, and suicide belts, with sniper rifles, well-laid ambushes, and daring assaults,” al Weheishy told militants throughout the whole region, especially those in the cities.
Al Weheishy ended his message with an appeal to the people of the Gulf countries to support Islamist militants in Yemen.

Militant Islamist Internet forums have been dominated today by news about the surrender of former Saudi Guantanamo detainee Mohammed a -Awfi to Saudi authorities.

Al Awfi, who was a key figure in the resuscitated al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, recently appeared in a video along with three other al Qaeda leaders, including former Guantanamo detainee Saeed Ali Al Shihri, where he threatened attacks against foreign interests throughout the Gulf region, particularly in Saudi Arabia.

“We tell the policemen of the Saud family, the guardians of the Jews and the Crusaders, repent to God what you have been doing by guarding the gates of their embassies, their churches, their compounds, and their military and intelligence headquarters,” he had said in the video.

Realizing how al Awfi’s surrender undermines the credibility and the status of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, many forum members chose to refute the news of his surrender and claim that al Awfi had been arrested.

One member even claimed that “the Americans must’ve planted metal chips in al Awfi’s body or else how did they manage to nab him so quickly?!”

Abu Dujana al Azdi, a pro-al Qaeda author and a regular contributor to the militant Islamist websites, published a “warning message” that was posted on all forums today. He told fellow members not to believe reports on the surrender of al Awfi until it’s been confirmed by a trusted jihadi source. He suggested that this might be an ambush set by the Saudi intelligence to arrest many of the militants who would try to contact al Awfi upon hearing the “fabricated news.”

Yesterday, al Arabiya News channel aired video of al Awfi looking weak and tired boarding a plane that was taking him back to Saudi Arabia from Yemen.
Following major arrests, Saudi authorities often run television broadcasts of what it calls “the confessions of the misled ones.” If al Awfi appears on national television and retracts his militant ideas, it would be considered a serious blow to al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and its credibility.

The Islamic Jihad in Yemen, the group that claimed responsibility for the attack on the U.S embassy in Sanaa Wednesday, demanded that the U.S. and British Embassies in Sanaa be shut down, in a statement mailed to a number of Yemeni news websites. The group had claimed to have an affiliation with al Qaeda. “We, the organization of the Islamic Jihad in Yemen, affiliated to al Qaeda, demand from the U.S. and British embassies to leave Yemen immediately,” the statement said.

Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, Yemen branch, is claiming responsibility for the attack on a police station in Saioun, Hadramout, east of the capital Sanaa. In an Internet statement, the group said that suicide bomber Abu Dajana al Hadrami carried out the attack which left two people dead and eight injured. The statement showed a picture of Hadrami, whose alias is Ahmed Ben Saeed al Mashgari. The statement claimed that the attack came in retaliation to the killing of some militants killed by Yemeni security forces. This same police station had been the target of a bomb attack last April. No casualties occurred then. No group had claimed responsibility for that attack, but Yemeni authorities had fingered al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, Yemen Branch, released a 7:39 minute video showing what the group said was the “firing of three Katyusha missiles on the oil refinery of Safir, eastern the capital Sanaa.” Although the video showed the three missiles, none of them were seen being fired.

The tape also featured an audio statement by a group spokesperson in which he said that the attack came in line with Bin Laden’s directives to target oil installations that supply “Crusader forces” with Arab oil. He provided religious arguments legitimizing the attack on their own interests. The video closed with a statement by a man identified as “Mujahid Hamza al-Qate’ey” who addressed Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh calling him “the Ariel Sharon of Yemen.” He pledged to free all the militants locked up in Yemeni prisons on his orders.

The group had issued another Internet statement last month in which it claimed that it fired three Katyusha rockets at the oil refinery of Safir. The statement said that the attack took place on June 25 and was aimed at "drying up the supply of fuel to the Zionists and Crusaders."

Yemeni authorities did not report the incident, but some media reports quoted witnesses in the area as saying that two rockets had been found intact and hadn't been fired, while the third missed its target.

Yemeni Shiite group “Ansar al Haq” posted two new videos showing new scenes of their fighting with government forces in Saada, northern Yemen. The first video showed a militant sneaking up to a U.S. tank, putting explosives on it and running away before blowing it up. The second video showed a U.S. helicopter that had been shot down by the group in the Meran area. Pictures taken from the mountains showed a large column of dark smoke rising from the location where the helicopter crashed in the valley below. There were also some pictures of the aftermath showing the plane’s debris and some fighters gathered around and shouting, “Death to America, Death to Israel.”

President Saleh sent a message to the Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of the militant Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, urging him to intervene to put an end to the fighting with the rebel Huthi followers in Saada in northern Yemen, according to a report posted on a Yemeni Internet forum by the Yemeni Shiiter group Ansar al Haq. The group also posted several videos that showed aftermath pictures of an airstrike by Yemeni warplanes on a village in Saada. One video showed what the group said were parachute drops of food and supplies for Yemeni forces stranded in the Meran area.