"Ex-Guantanamo detainee now an al Qaeda leader in Yemen"

“Detainee is an admitted veteran jihadist with combat experience beginning in 1990 and it is assessed he would engage in hostilities against US forces, if released,” JTF-GTMO [Joint Task Force Guantanamo threat assessment] found.

In 1990, Qosi met two al Qaeda members who recruited him for jihad in Afghanistan.

Qosi was then trained at al Qaeda’s al Farouq camp, which was the terror group’s primary training facility in pre-9/11 Afghanistan. In 1991, Osama bin Laden relocated to Sudan and Qosi followed. He worked as an accountant and treasurer for bin Laden’s front companies, a role he would continue to fill after al Qaeda moved back to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the mid-1990s.

JTF-GTMO found that after an attempt on bin Laden’s life in 1994, Qosi was chosen to be a member of the al Qaeda founder’s elite security detail. He was also picked to perform sensitive missions around that time.

For example, Qosi served as a courier and may have delivered funds to the terrorist cell responsible for the June 25, 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Qosi relocated to Chechnya that same year, before returning to bin Laden’s side in Afghanistan some time in 1996 or 1997.

“From 1998 to 2001,” JTF-GTMO’s analysts wrote, Qosi “traveled back and forth between the front lines near Kabul and Kandahar to help with the fight against the Northern Alliance.”

In Dec. 2001, the Pakistanis captured Qosi as he fled the Battle of Tora Bora. He was detained as part of a group dubbed the “Dirty 30” by US intelligence officials. The “Dirty 30” included other members of bin Laden’s bodyguard unit, as well as Mohammed al Qahtani, the would-be 20th hijacker. Qahtani, who was slated to take part in the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings, had been denied entry into the US just months before.

While detained at Guantanamo in 2003, Qosi was asked why he stayed true to bin Laden for so many years. According to JTF-GTMO, Qosi explained it was his “religious duty to defend Islam and fulfill the obligation of jihad and that the war between America and al Qaeda is a war between Islam and aggression of the infidels.”

Qosi made it clear in AQAP’s [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] new production that he hasn’t changed his opinion in the twelve years since.

U.S. Battleships to Yemen

Yemen brings US and Iran closer to a naval face-off. 

VOANews

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and the guided missile cruiser USS Normandy passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, joining seven other U.S. battleships in the area, including the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, which includes a complement of more than 2,000 U.S. Marines.

 

“The focus is to make sure we have sufficient forces in the area to counter any threats,” said U.S. 5th Fleet spokesman Commander Kevin Stephens, adding that weapons smuggling is a concern. "If they were to have indications of weapons smuggling, there are a number of steps they could take,” he said. 



Such measures could include “consensual boarding,” something the Navy did to a Panamanian-flagged vessel in the Red Sea that had been suspected of carrying arms, although nothing was found.

Yemen new home for al Qaeda?

Nasir al Wihayshi

Yemen is speculated to become the new "strategic" home of al Qaeda. Nasir al Wihayshi , the head of AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula),  is reported to be a very patient, soft-spoken man who is able to withstand pressure from top al Qaeda leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, "to act." Intercepted communications between the two have contributed to the the temporary closing and reinforcement of  22 American foreign offices.

The US and Britain have been issued warnings to their citizens to leave Yemen immediately, and have evacuated non-essential personnel.