AQAP new leader Saeed al-Shihri

SANA'A, Feb. 11 (Saba) - The Saudi national Saeed
al-Shihri is the current leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen, expecting death of the leader
of the
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Nasir al-Wuhayshi in the air raid in Abyan
province last December, sources supposed on Thursday.
According to the Defense Ministry website, the sources linked between the
expectations and an audio recording aired in some websites of al-Shihri, the deputy
of the AQAP
leader.
The sources said that what reinforced the doubts of al- Wuhayshi's death is his
disappearance of the al-Qaeda activities recently, since the raid.
Nasir al-Wuhayshi is expected to be killed in an air raid hit Abyan province in
December 2009.
Saeed Al-Shihri is an ex-Gitmo detainee appeared in Yemen as a second in command of
the AQAP.
He was transferred from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia in 2007. He was immediately put
into the Saudi Ministry of Interior's rehabilitation program for arrested
extremists.
Al-Shihri was born in Riyadh and now nearly 34 years old, Shihri is the fourth
among four brothers. He had traveled earlier to Afghanistan and Chechnya.
Interior Ministry has announced that security authorities would continue its
operations against al-Qaeda hideouts throughout the country.
The leadership of the ministry said that the security forces would never stop
hunting terrorists around the clock, wherever they are.
As Yemen intensifying its crackdown on alleged hideouts of al-Qaeda, the Ministry
has raised the security alert of the different security authorities to face any
sabotage
acts and to enhance the society peace.
Yemen's war against al-Qaeda resulted in killing many leaders of al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) including the top regional leader of al-Qaeda Qassim Yahya
Mahdi
al-Raymi.
AF/AF