A former Saudi police officer has taken over as leader of al-Qaeda on the Arabian peninsula after the last three incumbents died in the brutal jihad raging in Saudi Arabia, media reported yesterday.
Saleh Mohammad al-Oufi, 38, who is No. 4 on the kingdom's list of most wanted militants, "has been designated al-Qaeda chief in Saudi Arabia, succeeding Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin," the London-based Asharq al-Awsat daily said.
The Saudi-owned daily sourced the news to al-Qaeda itself without further detail after Al-Muqrin was gunned down in the capital Riyadh on Friday night along with three of his lieutenants.
The Saudi Institute, which bills itself as an independent news outfit based in Washington, quoted "intelligence" to confirm al-Oufi's appointment.
It said the one-time police officer, born in Medina, joined "terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Bosnia where he was injured and returned to Saudi Arabia in 1995.
"Al-Oufi was in the shadows while al-Muqrin was in charge, because he was busy running the secret al-Qaeda camps in Saudi Arabia. He was essentially res-ponsible for training, recruitment and logistics," the institute said in an e-mail received on Sunday.
"Al-Oufi might be more dangerous than Al-Muqrin because he comes from the security ranks and the fact he is a Hijazi from the holy city of Medina where he can recruit from the most economically depressed areas of Saudi Arabia.
"Al-Oufi might also be a more effective al-Qaeda leader because he is older, spent more time in the country than Muqrin, and is more familiar with [the] al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia as he was one of those who built it."
"Saleh al-Oufi is the most dangerous" of al-Qaeda's lieutenants left alive in Saudi Arabia, said Al-Hayat, another Saudi-owned publication in London.
Islamist Web sites used as information channels by al-Qaeda have either not posted the succession news or remained inaccessible since Sunday, when a statement in the name of the network announced that the succession to Muqrin was assured.
Muqrin had died "after having prepared sincere men from among the combatants to succeed him and carry on the jihad, equipped by God with everything needed to bring harm to America and its agents among the tyrants," the statement said.
Oufi left school as a teenager and enrolled in the police but left in 1988 to spend four years in the prison service before being sacked, according to biographical details quoted by several Arab media outlets.
Al-Hayat said Oufi met al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Afghanistan shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the US.
Muqrin became the al-Qaeda leader in the kingdom after Yemeni Khaled Ali Haj was killed in March this year as Saudi Arabia hunted down extremists.
Asharq al-Awsat said the previous chief of the network on the Arabian peninsula, Yussef al-Ayri, was also shot dead in June last year, a month after a series of suicide bombings started in the kingdom.
The Saudi Institute also revealed it had an exclusive recording of Oufi "singing to his mother about his decision to join the holy war."
He urged her to "stay patient if he dies and put her trust in God." He also called on his uncle's family to join the "path of their forefathers, the supporters of the Prophet Mohammed."
"Death in the path of faith is the greatest honor," he reportedly said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to