From Yemen to Detroit: The Expanding Influence of AQAP’s Sa’id al-Shihri

From Yemen to Detroit: The Expanding Influence of AQAP’s Sa’id al-Shihri

In the Saudi state television broadcast of a recorded conversation which took place on August 27, 2009 between Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayef and Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Assiri—moments before al-Assiri attempted to assassinate the prince via suicide bomb—Bin Nayef made mention of a woman and her children whose safety he claimed was a top priority. The woman to whom bin Nayef was referring was Wafa’a al-Shihri. [1] She had fled to Yemen from Saudi Arabia to be with her husband, Sa’id al-Shihri, a fugitive and the deputy leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and someone who Bin Nayef—as Deputy Interior Minister in charge of Counterterrorism—was hoping to convince into surrender.  Meanwhile, al-Assiri—equipped with a body-borne suicide bomb—sat down with Bin Nayef under the false pretense of coming forward himself.  When a cell phone rang during the meeting, al-Assiri answered and explained to Bin Nayef it was al-Shihri on the line and that he should speak with him.  The cell phone that Bin Nayef naively intercepted sent a signal from al-Shihri that detonated al-Assiri’s explosive, killing the bomber, and leaving Bin Nayef largely unharmed. This narrative indicates that al-Shihri (a.k.a. Abu Sufyan al-Azdi) was in charge of the plot to assassinate Muhammad Bin Nayef, operating from Yemen. Ultimately the assassination attempt was a failure; but AQAP sent a clear message that the ruling personalities of the oil-soaked, desert kingdom were clearly in their sights, and now, firmly within their reach. Saudi reports confirmed that the prince was in fact speaking to Sa’id al-Shihri on the phone at the time of the detonation (al-Watan, September 7, 2009). Several days later, AQAP released its own video about the assassination attempt and broadcasted the phone conversation between Bin Nayef and al-Shihri, comprising part of this dueling narrative between the Saudi state and AQAP.

From Afghanistan to Yemen by way of Guantanamo

Sa’id Bin Ali bin Jabir al-Khothim al-Shihri was born in Riyadh on September 20, 1973 to a retired lieutenant of the Saudi Army. He grew up in Khamis al-Mushayt in the Kingdom’s southern Asir province, the birthplace of several 9/11 hijackers. According to Saudi reports, al-Shihri failed to complete his schooling (Okaz [Jeddah], October 24, 2009). He traveled to Afghanistan two weeks after the 9/11 attacks via Bahrain and Pakistan. According to some reports he was trained in 2000 on urban warfare in a Libyan jihadi training camp north of Kabul. There were also reports, which advised that he spent time in Iran. Although he was arrested later along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border following an injury he sustained from a missile strike, he claimed that he was there to participate in philanthropic activity. Al-Shihri spent a month and a half in a Pakistani hospital, before he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay (Ma’arb Press, February 16).

In the Guantanamo detention facility, al-Shihri was prisoner number 372 and was one of the Saudi prisoners who Riyadh lobbied for release of in 2006. He was one of eleven Saudis released from Guantanamo that Riyadh had listed at the time this article was published, as having fled the country and returned to terrorism. [2] His brother in arms, Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi, was with al-Shihri on the flight that ferried the detainees back to Saudi Arabia. Both men, along with several others linked to jihadi activities, were enrolled in a rehabilitation program that was being run by Saudi security forces. After disappearing from the Kingdom, al-Awfi and al-Shihri appeared in an AQAP video emanating from Yemen. A few months later, al-Awfi resurfaced in Saudi Arabia and surrendered to Saudi authorities, returning to his family in Riyadh (Ma’arb Press, February 16). Several Saudi jihadists released from Guantanamo, such as al-Awfi and al-Shihri, turned up in Yemen and the majority of them were named on a Saudi most wanted list (minus al-Assiri) known as “the 85 list.”

A specialist working in the Prince Muhammad bin Nayef Centre for Care and Counseling where al-Shihri resided, described his life after his release from Guantanamo: “He returned to Saudi Arabia, from Cuba, on the 29th of Shawal 1427 (November 21, 2006). He was incarcerated in al-Ha’ir prison for several months during which he was ‘advised’ at least for an hour and a half per day, while he was subject to daily classes in the care center no less than three hours a day, with an aim to [rehabilitate and reintegrate into Saudi society]. On one occasion [al-Shihri] asked the psychology specialists [in the center for their help] because of the lack of acceptance [he was receiving] from [the] daughter [of] his first marriage, Asmm’a, a student at the primary level. [He] asked them to assist him in [finding a way to gain his daughter’s acceptance as a father], as he had been absent [from her for] about seven years in Guantanamo. After undergoing rehabilitation, he left the [rehabilitation] center to the dismay of his family [and made an appearance] in Yemen, accompanied by his colleague Mohamed al-Awfi.” The same report quoted al-Shihri’s father talking about his son before he left for Yemen. “Sa’id after his release from the care center came back to Khamis al-Mushayt, and [I] prepared [for] him accommodations and proceeded [to make his arrangements] to marry Wafa’a al-Shihri” (Okaz, October 24, 2009).

Ideology

While the majority of reports on al-Shihri in Saudi newspapers were written with the aim of undermining him and his charisma, his own writings on Sada al-Malahim (“The Echo of Battles”-AQAP’s journal) convey a personality of a man that subscribes deeply to his own Salafi-Jihadi ideology. For example, he considers establishing a caliphate on earth a high priority. He wrote: 

Furthermore, in an article entitled “Haqiqat al-Jahilyyah fi A’adam Tahkim al-Shari’a” (“the real ignorance is in not ruling by Shari’a”), he criticized contemporary Muslim clerics because they have forgotten the fundamentals of their religion, Shari’a rule and the duty to wage jihad against the tyrants for the sake of their own mundane interests (Sada al-Malhim, Issue 10). Also, in demonstration of his Salafi-Jihadi ideological credentials, he penned an article warning readers that he considered the Shia more “dangerous than others.” His text went on to say that the Shia aim to control the Arabian Peninsula as proxies of the United States and Western interests. Al-Shihri then stated forebodingly that “our sympathizers [are] awaiting our orders for the next war” (Sada al-Malhim, Issue 12).

Influence

The influence that al-Shihri has had on AQAP, apart from being the second man organizationally, seems to be significant on two levels:  he is responsible for the funding channels of AQAP and for defining the organization’s offensive strategy. On September 27, 2009, al-Arabiya reported a mobile message showing al-Shihri and another man pictured beside him calling on their followers to donate money to the cause of AQAP. He claimed, “The blessed jihad of your brothers in Yemen against the enemies of religion and the [enemies] of [the] people—the Jews and the Christians—needs lifeblood and the lifeblood of jihad is money…this is our brother, who is carrying this letter, [he] is [a] trusted man by us.” Al-Arabiya revealed that the man who appeared with al-Shihri was Mohammed Abdulkarim al-Ghazali, a Yemeni jihadist wanted in Saudi Arabia, who is believed to be the same operative who facilitated the meeting of Abdullah al-Assiri and Prince Muhammad bin Nayef in August 2009 (Alarabiya.net, September 27, 2009).

When the U.S. government arrested him, they charged al-Shihri with working for charities that had been designated as fronts for al-Qaeda. The government’s unclassified files on al-Shihri further note that he was an “al-Qaeda travel facilitator” who would brief “others in Mashad, Iran on entry procedures into Afghanistan utilizing a certain crossing.” [3]

Regarding AQAP’s hierarchy and mission, al-Shihri stated in his latest video message that the botched Christmas day suicide attack by 23 year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest Airlines flight 253 that was flying between Amsterdam and Detroit was coordinated directly with Osama bin Laden. Al-Shihri proclaimed in the same recording that AQAP has a strong desire to gain control over the Bab al-Mandab strait in coordination with the (al-Shabaab) mujahideen in Somalia in order to create an international incident by restricting the flow of oil with an aim to choke Israel, “because [the] USA [is] supporting [the Israelis] from there through the Red Sea.” [4]

These incidents indicate the level of influence that al-Shihri has had among al-Qaeda’s new leadership. If the leader of AQAP, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, were to be captured or killed, al-Shihri is readily available to take his place far from the reach of the rule of law. In addition to his own jihadi credentials, it seems that al-Shihri’s importance is steadily growing as he is in charge, operationally, of one of the most important branches of al-Qaeda. The fact that Yemen has recently gained notoriety as one of the most crucial areas where al-Qaeda is freely operating and aiming to create a safe haven can be largely credited to Sa’id al-Shihri. In less than one year, AQAP was able to prepare attacks outside of Yemen’s borders either regionally (as the clever Bin Nayef assassination attempt showed) or internationally, as the crude attempt by a young AQAP-trained Nigerian operative on Northwest 253 demonstrated.

Notes

1. The biography of Wafa’a al-Shihri (a.k.a. Um Hajer al-Azdi), who is described by Saudi media as “the first Saudi woman to join al-Qaeda,” reflects how the Salafi-jihadist groups desire to create their own sub-communities in the societies they live in. Al-Shihri, after her divorce from her first husband, married one of Saudi Security’s most wanted, Abdul Rahman al-Ghamdi, who was killed in a confrontation with Saudi security forces in 2004 in the city of Taif. Then, her brother, Yusuf al-Shihri convinced her to marry his prison-mate in Guantanamo, Sa’id al-Shihri. Yusuf was killed by Saudi security forces in October 2009 while trying to sneak into Saudi Arabia from Yemen. Wafa’a al-Shihri left Riyadh in 2009 to reconnect with her husband, and her three children (one from each husband), in Yemen, where Sa’id received her, accompanied by her nephew (Yusuf’s son) Abdulelah al-Shihri, the youngest member of al-Qaeda in Yemen. For further details see, Arabian Business, September 4, 2009, www.arabianbusiness.com/arabic/566763, also Saudi daily al-Watan [Riyadh], September 2, 2009, www.alwatan.com.sa/news/newsdetail.asp.

2. For a description of his family’s celebration upon his release, see al-Khothim’s forum, kothimy.com/vb/showthread.php.

3. The Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants at US Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, “Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the Case of Al Marri, Jaralla Saleh Mohammed Karla,” Department of Defense, November 17, 2005, Available at https://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/get/2041/66815/02997text.txt.

4. His speech can be found in this link, February 8, 2010, 202.71.102.68/~alfaloj/vb/showthread.php.