Prominent al Qaeda leader killed in drone strike in 2012
By BILL ROGGIO, February 6, 2013
Al Qaeda announced the death of Abd el Kader Mahmoud Mohamed el Sayed, a longtime senior jihadist leader and military commander who was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan sometime in the spring of 2012. El Sayed, also known as Abu Saleh al Masri, had been a member of al Qaeda since the early 1990s and had served in multiple jihadist theaters, including in Italy. He commanded al Qaeda forces along the Afghan-Pakistan border before being killed along with his son.
While in Italy, el Sayed was associated with the Via Quaranta mosque and the Islamic Cultural Institute, two radical Islamist centers linked to terror plots. El Sayed was recorded by Italian intelligence several times while discussing terrorist plots against the West. In one conversation, he was recorded while speaking to Abd al Salam al Hilah, a member of Yemen's Political Security Organization (PSO) and a current Guantanamo detainee, who "had foreknowledge of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 2000 attack on the UK Embassy in Sanaa...the 2000 attack on the USS COLE, a planned attack on the US or British Embassy in Sanaa that was to occur in October 2002, and probably the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack," according to a leaked Guantanamo intelligence assessment. That same assessment described el Sayed as Osama bin Laden's "ambassador" to Italy and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's "top document forger." [For more information, see LWJ report, Yemeni government official doubled as al Qaeda operative, leaked assessment shows.]
According to al Bahtiti, Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Mohammed Atef, al Qaeda's military commander who was killed in November 2001, and other "emigrant brothers" had "rejoiced" at his arrival. El Sayed then officially "pledged allegiance to Sheikh Osama," despite the fact that he served as an al Qaeda operative for years.
El Sayed traveled to Afghanistan with Abu Ayyub al Masri, the Egyptian al Qaeda leader who became the emir of al Qaeda in Iraq after Abu Musab al Zarqawi was killed by the US in June 2006. Like el Sayed, Abu Ayyub al Masri was a close associate of Zawahiri.
After the US invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, el Sayed left Afghanistan along with other al Qaeda leaders.
"So he went to neighboring Pakistan and stayed in it for a period of time aiding the mujahideen brothers and traveling to different locations, then after he finished his job and fulfilled his duty, he went to Iran," al Bahtiti said.
Once in Iran, el Sayed was placed under protective custody along with his family and other al Qaeda leaders and operatives. He was in custody for eight years, and then released by Iran. Al Qaeda leaders and operatives are known to shelter in Iran under a loose form of house arrest by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and move from there into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries.
After leaving Iran, el Sayed traveled to Pakistan's tribal agency of South Waziristan, a bastion for al Qaeda, the Taliban, and a host of jihadist groups. Once there, he took command of an al Qaeda fighting unit that operated against US and NATO forces in Paktika province in Afghanistan.
"After he reached Waziristan, he took charge of the [Angoor Ada] front in Afghanistan, and Allah granted him success in inflicting grave damage to the Crusader enemy, and he had many ****** activities and actions," the martyrdom statement said.
Al Qaeda is known to operate military units in eastern Afghanistan, under the aegis of the Lashkar al Zil, or the Shadow Army. Al Qaeda occasionally releases martyrdom statements of fighters killed in eastern Afghanistan, and US special operations forces have conducted numerous raids against al Qaeda operatives in Paktika province over the past several years. Additionally, a document seized at Osama bin Laden's safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, stated that al Qaeda had several "companies" that operate in Pakistan's tribal areas.
According to el Sayed's martyrdom statement, he was killed along with his son, Saleh, sometime "in Rajab 1433H [May-June 2012] via the bombing of an unmanned drone." Saleh, who was born sometime in 1993, was either 18 or 19 when killed.
Saleh had "accompanied his father in the fighting fronts and did jihad with him until Allah fated that he go with him, so he was bombed along with his father and martyred beside him."
The date and location of the strike that killed el Sayed and his son were not provided in the biography. The US carried out 11 drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal agency of North Waziristan in the months of May and June 2012.
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Prominent al Qaeda leader killed in drone strike in 2012 - The Long War Journal