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Cia kills in yemen Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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World - Reuters
CIA Killed Al Qaeda Suspects in Yemen, Official Says
2 hours, 24 minutes ago
By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A missile fired by an unmanned CIA (news - web sites) drone aircraft hit a car believed to be carrying suspected al Qaeda members in Yemen Sunday and killed several occupants, a U.S. official said Monday.
The official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the American military was not involved in the attack, which reports from the capital Sanaa said killed six alleged al Qaeda members. They included Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, a key suspect in a bombing attack on the U.S. warship Cole in Aden two years ago, according to Yemen's news agency.
"As I understand it, it was an agency drone" that conducted the weekend strike in the oil-producing Marib province east of the capital Sanaa, said the U.S. official, who did not provide any details.
The CIA previously has used remote-controlled "Predator" drones to fire missiles at suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan (news - web sites).
The Defense Department and CIA refused to comment on the incident, but Yemen's news agency reported in Sanaa that a car explosion had killed the members of al Qaeda. The radical Muslim group led by fugitive Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) is blamed by Washington for the devastating attacks on America in September of last year. In Bentonville, Arkansas, President Bush (news - web sites) did not comment directly on the Yemen incident, but reiterated Monday that he was determined to break up al Qaeda.
"The only way to treat them is (for) what they are -- international killers. And the only way to find them is to be patient, and steadfast, and hunt them down. And the United States of America is doing just that," Bush said. "We're in it for the long haul."
SIX TRAVELING IN AUTOMOBILE
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon (news - web sites) briefing on Monday, praised the anti-terrorism cooperation between Washington and Yemen. Elite U.S. military trainers were sent there this year to advise Yemeni troops on striking al Qaeda guerrillas believed hiding in remote parts of the country.
An Interior Ministry official told Yemen's Saba news agency that arms, traces of explosives and communications equipment were found in the car, in which the six suspected al Qaeda members were traveling.
He said one of the dead men was believed to be al-Harthi, also known as Abu Ali, one of two key suspects hunted by security forces since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington that killed about 3,000 people.
Al-Harthi was the senior al Qaeda representative in Yemen and among the top dozen al Qaeda leaders worldwide, a U.S. official said. A former bin Laden bodyguard, he was "known to be involved in planning terrorist attacks in and around Yemen," the official said.
Al-Harthi is suspected of involvement in the 2000 suicide bombing on the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen's Aden harbor that killed 17 U.S. sailors. Washington also blames that attack on the Saudi-born bin Laden, whose ancestral home is in Yemen.
U.S. officials believe al-Harthi may have also been involved in the recent French tanker explosion off the coast of Yemen.
The U.S. military has 800 or more Marines and elite Special Operations troops and, according to published reports, some CIA paramilitary personnel in the Horn of Africa. Most of the troops are at a French military base in Djibouti.
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