New AQAP Video

AQAP has a new video out, and just in time. This is the video that was teased in issue 8 of Sada al-Malahim along with the audio message from ‘Adil al-‘Abab, “No alms and No Jihad,” which was released at the end of March. It seems as though the group needed to get this out before they could release the new issue of Sada al-Malahim, which I suggested yesterday is on its way out. After all, the organization has to follow through on what it said it would do.

This new video -it is just over ten minutes – is entitled: “Rabaysh: The Just Punishment,” and is essentially a re-reading of the statement put out by the organization in issue six of Sada al-Malahim (November 2008), back when the organization was still al-Qaeda in the South of the Arabian Peninsula, interspersed with various video footage.

The statement and the video charge that Muhammad bin Rabaysh, a security officer in Marib, was involved in the 2002 assassination of Abu Ali al-Harithi, which was carried out by a US drone in Marib. That he met with the US ambassador a number of times at his home, it is unclear which US ambassador is meant here, but I’m assuming it is Edmund Hull. And that he was involved in the killing of four al-Qaeda members at a safe house in the Marib/al-Jawf border region in August 2007.

The four men are listed as:
1. ‘Amr bin Husayn Haraydan al-Muhashmi (a suicide bomber in-training)
2. Ali bin Ali bin Salih Duha
3. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin Sa’id bin Muhammad Jaradan
4. Naji bin Ali bin Salih Jaradan

The last three are all from the ‘Abidah tribe while the first was from Nihm. I wrote about the August 2007 raid back when it happened here, which was in retaliation for the July 2007 suicide attack on a convoy of Spanish tourists in Marib.

For all of these reasons, both the statement and the video make clear, Rabaysh was assassinated with a package bomb in October 2008. The actual bomb is shown in the video.

This is, in my view, a fairly effective piece of propaganda, and it makes clear that al-Qaeda is not only interested in carrying out attacks aimed at westerners, but if security officers are too active in hunting them down, then, they too will pay the price. It also does a good job, once again, of attempting to bring particular tribes over to its side, particularly tribes in Marib and al-Jawf.