America Hit Missiles with an Unmanned Bomber

America Excluded Al Qaida in Yemen

▽Excluding them with missiles=This operation, which the CIA was known to intervene in, was done right after a helicopter, in which 2 employees of an American oil company, was shot down in the Yemeni capitol Sanaa in the morning. The CNN reported that an Osama Bin Laden`s sideman Ali was shot to death by a missile deployed from a unmanned bomber Predator while riding a car through a desert in northeast Sanaa with 5 of his attendants. Witnesses said that there were communication devices and explosives on board in the car that Ali and his attendants were in, so it created the second explosion.

Ali, whose real name was Qaid Salim Sinan Al Hareti, was under a suspicion that he was involved in the terror attack to an American warship, Cole, which was anchored in the Port Aden on October 2000, and in the terror attack to a French oil tanker passing near Minaaltabah Port in the beginning of last month. Ali was defying the search of America with force by moving in and out of desert towns such as Al Hosoon since last year.

▽The resumed assassination operation of America=The New York Times reported that this was the first time an armed Predator to attack and exclude members of Al Qaida outside of Afghanistan. The New York Times also reported that this incident would be a sign to move the battlefield of the War against Terror to Yemen and expand the clean-up operation. America already dispatched more than 50 agents of the War against Terror to Yemen.

This incident confirmed that America might start to assassin the people related to Al Qaida like during the Afghan War. America did a missile attack to Mulla Mohamed Omar, who was the highest executive of the Taliban, last November and a pro-Taliban military clan Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but failed to exclude them.

The ‘overseas assassination’ operation like this was prohibited in then President Gerald Ford`s regime in 1976, but it was known to be resurrected since the President George W. Bush approved ‘the confidential and fatal operation against the members of Al Qaida.’ ‘The Resurrection’ was publicized by the report of the Washington Post, but the American Government refuses it. Major US media such as the New York Times quoting a nameless official of the US Department of State and Yemeni Government also reported the exclusion of Ali was led by the CIA; however, the US White House, Department of State, and CIA is not saying a word about that.

The President Bush was briefed about this incident during his support stumping for the interim election of the State of Arkansas on the 4th and said, “America is pursuing an international murderer,” and “we must have patience and decisiveness to win this fight.”

Ki-Tae Kwon kkt@donga.com