IO N IPT SC R SU B
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2011
Asian mechanic dies after fall from lift
No: 15226
THULQADA 3, 1432 AH
Bubble cars provide jolt to motoring
Spurs survive Europa scare
150 Fils
4US kills15top Qaeda 48 cleric in Yemen hit Al-Awlaki death major blow to militant network
Max 40º Min 26º
Anti-port Iraqi MPs play new slander game By A Saleh KUWAIT: Iraqi MPs opposed to the building of Kuwait’s Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port have been accused of spreading false allegations that Kuwaiti intelligence officials were involved in an assassination attempt against the husband of Iraqi MP Alia Nassif, one of the port’s most vocal opponents. The MPs have also accused the Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari of accepting gifts and cash during his recent visit to Kuwait in return for representing the Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port project in a positive light. Nassif said that her husband had been shot at whilst driving through North Baghdad by gunmen driving a vehicle with tinted windows, who used silencers on their firearms. “The shooting took place when the suspects intentionally began an argument with my husband before they shot him in the stomach,” said Nassif, insisting that the incident was a “political assassination attempt.” A source close to the MP claimed to have information proving the involvement of Kuwaiti intelligence officers in the shooting, which the source said was carried out in retaliation for Nassif’s strong opposition to the Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port project. Meanwhile, another MP, Hadi Al-Shibli, a member of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition, alleged that the country’s foreign minister had accepted bribes of cash and expensive ‘gifts’ from Kuwait in return for turning a blind eye to the harmful effects of the Kuwaiti port project on Iraq. Al-Shibli further alleged that senior Kuwaiti officials had also attempted to bribe the Iraqi transport minister, Hadi Al-Amri, in a similar manner adding that Al-Amri had refused these inducements and returned the proffered gifts to the Kuwaiti Embassy in Iraq together with an angry letter questioning the reason behind them. The MP claimed that the gifts were given to the senior figures during their recent visit to Kuwait and that Amri had only discovered the value of the gift on his return to Baghdad when he unwrapped it, immediately returning it to the Kuwaiti embassy there along with a terse note.
FALLS CHURCH: A woman waits at the gates of the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia yesterday. US air strikes in Yemen killed Anwar AlAwlaki (inset) , an American militant cleric at the mosque. — AP SANAA: In a significant new blow to AlQaeda, US airstrikes in Yemen yesterday killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American militant cleric who became a prominent figure in the terror network’s most dangerous branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits for attacks in the United States. The strike was the biggest US success in hitting Al-Qaeda’s leadership since the May killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But it raises questions that other strikes did not: AlAwlaki was an American citizen who has not been charged with any crime. Civil liberties groups have questioned the government’s authority to kill an American without trial. The 40-year-old Al-Awlaki was for years an influential mouthpiece for Al-Qaeda’s ideology of holy war, and his English-language sermons urging attacks on the United States were widely circulated among militants in the West. But US officials say he moved into a direct operational role in organizing such attacks as he hid alongside Al-Qaeda militants in the rugged mountains of Yemen. Most notably, they believe he was involved
in recruiting and preparing a young Nigerian who on Christmas Day 2009 tried to blow up a US airliner heading to Detroit, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives sewn into his underpants. Yemen’s Defense Ministry and US officials said another American militant was killed in the same strike alongside Al-Awlaki - Samir Khan, a US citizen of Pakistani heritage who produced “Inspire,” an Englishlanguage Al-Qaeda Web magazine that spread the word on ways to carry out attacks inside the United States. US and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not immediately identify them. Washington has called Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch in Yemen is called, the most direct threat to the United States after it plotted that attack and a foiled attempt to mail explosives to synagogues in Chicago. President Barack Obama declared AlAwlaki’s killing a “major blow” to Al-Qaeda’s most active affiliate, and vowed a vigorous US campaign to prevent the terror network
and its partners from finding safe haven anywhere in the world. Obama said Al-Awlaki “directed” the Christmas plane bombing attempt as well as a failed attempt to mail explosives to the United States, “and he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda.” In July, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Al-Awlaki was a priority target alongside Ayman Al-Zawahri, bin Laden’s successor as the terror network’s leader. The Yemeni-American had been in the US crosshairs since his killing was approved by Obama in April 2010 - making him the first American placed on the CIA “kill or capture” list. At least twice, airstrikes were called in on locations in Yemen where Al-Awlaki was suspected of being, but he wasn’t harmed. The operation that killed Al-Awlaki was run by the US military’s elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command - the same unit that got bin Laden. — AP