Al-Qaeda mourns Saudi member killed in Yemeni gun battle

Mar 14, 2010, 8:28 GMT

Sana'a, Yemen - Al-Qaeda's Yemen wing on Sunday mourned a Saudi member of the group, saying he has been killed in a gun battle with security forces in Yemen.

The al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) identified the slain man as Ibrahim Saleh Mujahid al-Khalifa, alias Abu-Jandal al-Qusaimi.

In a statement issued by al-Malahim Media Foundation, the AQAP's media arm, and posted on Islamist websites used by al-Qaeda, said al- Khalifa was originally from Rass, in Saudi Arabia's northern region of Qasim.

It said al-Khalifa was killed in a gun battle with 'apostate soldiers' in Yemen. The statement did not give a date or location of the battle.

Al-Khalifa had escaped a Yemeni air force airstrike unharmed, the statement said without giving a date.

He was among a group of al-Qaeda men who killed three senior police officials in an ambush in the south-eastern province of Hadhramout on November 3, according to the statement.

Yemen has stepped up operations against al-Qaeda in the country since December after the AQAP claimed responsibility for the failed plot to blow up a US passenger jet as it prepared to land at Detroit on Christmas Day.

It carried out a series of airstrikes on al-Qaeda locations in the southern provinces of Shabwa and Abyan in December and January.

Al-Khalifa had acted as a fund-raiser in Saudi Arabia for al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan before he joined the group in Yemen, the statement said. He also helped recruit a group of Saudi men for al- Qaeda and smuggled them into Yemen through the porous borders between the two countries.

According to the statement, al-Khalifa, who served as a school teacher in the central Saudi province of Dwaimi in 2006, received training in guerrilla warfare, electronics, explosives and first aid at al-Qaeda training camps in Yemen.