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Wednesday, February 17, 2010     FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Pakistani experts aiding Al Qaida in Saudi Arabia

ABU DHABI — Saudi Arabia has determined that the Al Qaida network was drawing support for strategic attacks in the Arab kingdom from insurgency operatives in Pakistan.   

Officials said Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has been acquiring expertise from bombmakers and other specialists in Pakistan. They said a Pakistani expert helped assemble the bomb that nearly killed Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef in August 2009.

"The Pakistani expert was highly skilled in making explosive devices and had been teaching and training some individuals in Al Qaida on how to make and use explosives," Ahmed Al Masiri, governor of Yemen's Abyan province, said.


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In an interview with the Saudi daily Okaz, Al Masiri did not identify the expert. But he said the Pakistani was killed in late 2009 during the premature detonation of a bomb under assembly.

Officials said the Pakistani bomb that nearly killed the Saudi deputy minister had been inserted in the rectum of the suicide attacker, identified as Abdullah Hassan Tali Al Asiri. They acknowledged that the bomb would not have been found in a search of the Al Qaida operative, allowed to enter Mohammed's home.

The Pakistani expert was said to have arrived in Yemen in 2009 to help AQAP in the war against Riyad and Sanaa. Officials said the Al Qaida operative was killed in the northern city of Saada in December 2009.

In a subsequent Yemeni air strike, three Saudis implicated in the attempted assassination of Mohammed were also killed. They were identified as Mohammed Al Rashed, Fahd Al Jittaili and Sultan Al Qahtani, said to have been hiding in an Al Qaida safe house later searched by Yemeni forces.

"Our forces had found explosives and explosive belts similar to the substances found in the explosive capsule used by Al Asiri in his attempt to kill Prince Mohammed," Al Masiri said.

Al Masiri said Pakistanis have also been providing other expertise for AQAP operations. He said an unidentified Pakistani expert was helping the Al Qaida network in Yemen prepare chemical weapons, particularly poison gas.

"They are training Al Qaida operatives to use poisonous substances," Al Masiri said.



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