Two Muslims from London mosque are killed in Yemen war

Tom Harper

27 June 2012

Two British Muslims from a mosque near Heathrow airport have been killed fighting beside Islamist militants in Yemen.

Adil Malik, from Hounslow, and a friend called Hisham died during the Arab nation’s increasingly bloody civil war in mountains near the town of Dammaj.

Malik, 24, a former accountancy student from Brunel University, went to Yemen four years ago to study the Koran at a madrassa.

His father praised his son as a “shaheed” – a martyr — and said he had inspired his entire family to take their religion more seriously.

The news of his death comes 24 hours after MI5’s director general Jonathan Evans said Yemen was now a training ground for British “would-be jihadis”.

Malik and Hisham both attended a small mosque under the Heathrow flightpath at Cranford — also occasionally attended by Asif Hanif, Britain’s first suicide bomber, who killed himself in a 2003 Tel Aviv bar attack.

An imam at the mosque said he did not agree with terrorism but would not discourage his congregation from going to Dammaj, which is a well-known seat of learning for fundamentalist “salafi” Islam.

British-born Malik, who went to Northolt High School, and Hisham had both studied with Sheikh Yahya al-Hajooree at the Dar ul-Haadith madrassa.

The school, which has come under regular attack by Shia Houthi tribesmen, is said to have several thousand students from all over the world, including dozens from Britain.

Two months before Malik died, the sheikh issued an online call to arms, declaring: “Whoever is killed defending his faith has died a martyr.”

Malik’s father, who moved to Britain from Pakistan 40 years ago, said Dammaj had been under siege by the Houthis for a month at the time his son died last December.

 “He didn’t go there to fight but if someone comes and attacks you, you have to defend yourself,” he said.

 “His time was written. It is going to come for you — it is written for everyone.”

He reserved his wrath for the Houthi tribal fighters, adding: “The Lord will punish them. They will pay, they will burn in hell. That is my prayer. They have taken innocent people’s lives.”

Raiders Of The Lost Terrorists

June 27, 2012

Hundreds of known al Qaeda members in Yemen have sort of disappeared. Many more are accounted for, as dead or captured. But it’s the unaccounted ones that have people worried. Rumors abound, such as those claiming some of the missing terrorists have fled east into Oman or north into Saudi Arabia. Both countries have announced that they are on the lookout for any al Qaeda men coming their way. Most, it is believed, have fled to sanctuary in the eastern provinces of Shabwa, Marib and Hadramout where separatist tribes are willing to hide the terrorists in remote villages. It’s going to be quite a military and diplomatic chore to get at these remaining terrorists.

The al Qaeda terrorist network has fallen apart in the south with the loss of the terrorist controlled towns. This has resulted in several terror attacks being detected by soldiers and aborted. More terrorist operatives (who recruit, train, equip and deploy suicide bombers) have been captured.

Al Qaeda left behind thousands of landmines when they fled towns like Zinjibar and Jaar. Soldiers have found and removed over 3,000 of those mines so far, but meanwhile several hundred civilians have been killed or wounded by the mines.

June 26, 2012: The last al Qaeda-held stronghold, the southeastern town of Azzan, has been captured by the army. The surviving al Qaeda men fled into the countryside over the previous week.

Five al Qaeda members escaped a jail in the port city of Hudayda. Four of the five are senior operatives and the government is investigating the possibility of jail staff being bribed.

June 24, 2012: The defeat of al Qaeda has persuaded rebellious tribes to abandon their blockade of the coastal oil refinery at Maarib. For the first time in over a year, oil can now resume moving through the pipeline to Maarib and be refined into various products (diesel, kerosene, etc). This is expected to cut the electricity blackouts in the capital, which now only gets about two hours of power a day.

June 23, 2012: Troops caught some tribal rebels attempting to destroy a long-distance power line. The gun battle left two soldiers and three rebels dead.

June 18, 2012: In the south, an al Qaeda suicide bomber, pretending to be a beggar, killed one of the generals who led the successful campaign against al Qaeda.