Over the objections of our Yemeni “allies,” “a Muslim imam and his assistant have been extradited to the United States after being arrested in Germany on suspicion of having links with al-Qaida. German prosecuters said Muhammad Ali Hasan Shaikh al-Muayad, imam of the main mosque in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, and Yahya Zayid were handed over to US authorities at Frankfurt airport on Sunday.”
This “al-Muayad” is the man who appeared in other stories as “al-Moayad” last week.
“Muayad is suspected of being a finance chief for Usama bin Ladin’s al-Qaida and Palestinian Islamic group Hamas, supplying both with weapons and communications equipment. He also had been linked to the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen which killed 17 crew and injured 38.”
This Al-Jazeera story also tells us that he was arrested in a sting arranged by “a Muslim working for the US Central Intelligence Agency who had studied at the same Quran school as Bin Ladin and Muayad.”
Best thing I’ve heard about the CIA in a long time.
This story also increases from 92 to 146 the number of putatively repentant al-Qaeda members freed by Yemen. “The official SABA news agency reported on Monday that Yemeni President Ali Abd Allah Salih had either freed or pardoned a total of 146 people suspected of links with al-Qaida, which carried out the 11 September 2001 attacks.”