Kenya manhunt for al-Qaeda wanted

There is a manhunt under way in Kenya for an al-Qaeda operative wanted for the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya aand Tanzania 10 years ago.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed allegedly evaded a police raid at the weekend in the coastal town of Malindi, where he was being hosted by friends. Earlier this year the suspect, who is from the Comoros Islands, survived a US missile attack on a hideout in Somalia.The United States has offered a reward of up to $5m (£2.5m) for his arrest. Three people arrested over the weekend - reportedly relatives of Mr Mohammed - pleaded not guilty on Monday to accusations they had harboured him. A judge ordered that they be held for four more days while prosecutors gather information. nd Tanzania 10 years ago. Meanwhile, the man who led the investigation into the Kenya bombing, Maj Marsden Madoka, has told the in an interview African Perspective programme that Kenyan intelligence passed on information to the US embassy ahead of the attack in 1998, but it was not acted on. The failure may have been due to a lack of communication between the embassy and US intelligence agencies, he said. More than 250 people were killed in the bomb attacks 10 years ago that Mr Mohammed allegedly planned.

Ambassador: Al-Qaida leaving Iraq for Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AP) - Al-Qaida's foreign fighters who have for years bedeviled Iraq are increasingly going to Afghanistan to fight instead, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States said Wednesday.

``We have heard reports recently that many of the foreign fighters that were in Iraq have left, either back to their homeland or going to fight in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now seeming to be more suitable for al-Qaida fighters,'' said Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie. Al-Qaida had training camps and a headquarters in Afghanistan, under the protection of the then-ruling Taliban, until the U.S. invaded after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. With al-Qaida forced out of Afghanistan, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 quickly drew outside fighters there. Sumaida'ie said al-Qaida is finding it now increasingly difficult to operate in Iraq, beginning with the rebellion of the largely Sunni tribes in Anbar Province in 2006 and 2007. Until then, al-Qaida had ruled by intimidation and violence, establishing physical control and setting up a shadow government in large swaths of Iraqi territory.``There were large tracts that were run by al-Qaida, administered by al-Qaida - they had ministers, administrators, paid salaries and so on. This no longer exists, so they do not have any territory to control (where it) is safe for them to move in and around Iraq,'' he said. ``In whole areas they ceased to operate as effective terrorist networks.'' Sumaida'ie's comments echoed those of the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. Gen. David Petraeus told The Associated Press last week that al-Qaida appears to be reassessing its chances of success in Iraq. ``They're not going to abandon Iraq. They're not going to write it off. None of that,'' Petraeus said. ``But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan.
``We do think they are considering what should be the main effort,'' he said. A U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence reporting said foreign fighters are generally not leaving Iraq for Afghanistan, but new recruits to al-Qaida are being sent to Afghanistan and Pakistan instead of Iraq. The numbers in all countries are small, however. The vast majority of al-Qaida in Iraq are native born, and extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan are overwhelmingly Pashtun fighters from the region. Sumaida'ie's remarks come as Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is conducting an overseas trip which included stops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama toured two war zones with Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. Last week they issued a written statement saying that Afghanistan and Pakistan's border area, where the Taliban is resurgent and Osama Bin Laden is believed to be hiding, should be the central front in the war against terrorism.
Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June, even though there are far fewer coalition troops in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaida senior leader grants rare TV interview

In a rare move, one of al-Qaida's highest-ranking leaders has conducted an on-camera interview with a journalist and, in the process, called for the destruction of Pakistan's government. It was the first time since 2002 that any top al-Qaida official has taken the security risk of sitting down for an interview with a bonafide journalist.
Abu Mustafa al-Yazid, an Egyptian whom U.S. intelligence officials have identified as the al-Qaeda's third highest-ranking official, sat for an interview with Najeeb Ahmad, a reporter for Geo TV. Geo TV is a private Pakistani television channel. In the interview, Yazid, also known as Sheikh Saeed, called for the destruction of Pakistan's government which he said had "betrayed" the jihadis. Yazid swore that al-Qaida would recapture Afghanistan. And he reiterated al-Qaida's position that "all Americans, not just the American government" are the enemies of Islam.