Abu Hafith aka Abu Hafez – AQ’s current chief of external operations?
This is a callout people. What do we know about him? I’m driving myself mad looking for an obscure reference I thought suggested he was Yemeni. Can I find it? No. Will calm myself down with a quiet beverage since it is well past Sunday afternoon Chards-o’clock. I’ll continue searching right after I re-write my stupid chapter conclusion (ugh, so not fun compared to this).
Meanwhile, who else has anything? There’s this snippet in a CNN report on Vinas I was just snooping around:
During a mountain walk with Zrioul one day, Vinas says he was told about a new course being taught by al Qaeda called “international operations” set up by al Qaeda’s head of international operations whom Vinas later identified as Abu Hafith.
Hafith, he stated, was responsible for recruitment and direction of terrorist cells, and attacks outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hafith was identified by his initials in the legal document but CNN obtained his name from a source briefed on the case.
And I think I saw the legal document they were talking about leaked online somewhere. Can I find that now? No.
Other name variants, Hafs, Hafeth, Hafiz. He’d have to have a kunya the same as Hafs al Masri wouldn’t he? They don’t make it easy. It’s also the word used to describe someone who has memorised the Quran.
And check this out. It’s one of the better OS reports on AQ I’ve seen. I just stumbled across it now looking for mystery Yemeni reference I saw somewhere. My stupid browser security is set soo high I can’t keep a history or bookmark. Makes things fun. Not.
I’ve been wondering about this guy for months, but now the lightbulbs are going off with all these disruptions, arrests, trials, and threats across Europe and the US. This dude whoever he is, seriously needs to meet a predator drone (or whatever the hell they are called) and soon. There’s been continuity in that spot for long enough to see that these arrests/disruptions/trials etc are part of what was to be quite a nasty campaign. As I said earlier, doesn’t mean they all knew each other. But think about it. Small classes 10-20.
Ugh. it’s all starting to make a lot more sense, and become quite apparent that AQ has really just squeezed the balloon and is operating quite well in Pakistan. I’m not so convinced by the comments that were made about attrition in some of the trial stuff. That’s the usual ploy to try to get off by saying you wanted to leave so does have to be taken with a grain of salt. Although one doesn’t want to alternatively read too much into it and somehow lionise al Qaeda’s capabilities beyond what they are. All comes back to small world networks, which I ranted about here in my post on measuring the metrics of success. I’m still curious as to whether the NYC raids were linked to Vinas. A lot has become clearer to me about op-tempo too. See my below post.
UPDATE: I just realised that it *could* also be Harith. Was wondering about Harith al Urdani who died in the summer of 08 in a predator strike. But, he was such a good internal commander I doubt he would have done it. Also nothing to suggest he ever supported external attacks.
It’s not Hafs al Mauritani, since he’s in Iran, and is more the theologian.
There was a Hafs al Arab in some GITMO stuff but that could be an old reference to Hafs al Masri. Grrr.
Ah HAH. I know where one of the Yemeni links I saw was. A guy on the Saudi most wanted list (no 59), arrested in Yemen. So not him. Hmm back to square one and looking for the other reference to the Yemeni in the Belgian group trial data.
I bet Fawaz al Otaibi knows who this sucker is.
UPDATE: Monday 21/09/09 I haven’t had coffee so I can’t be bothered doing another post. While the Yemen thing bugs me because I want to find what I saw, I hereby eat humble pie on my suggestion that I thought he might have been Yemeni. Mind you I’m going to keep re-tracing my steps to see what it was that made me think that mention of Yemenis was significant. And now I plan to ingest as much coffee as is humanly possible and try not to look at the running gear I put out and am clearly not going to use today.