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| Banner announcing the death of Bara'a Muhammad Salim al Sudani. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. |
A well-known jihadist Internet forum has announced that a Sudanese fighter who fought with a top al Qaeda military commander in Pakistan was killed during recent fighting in southern Yemen.
The Sudanese fighter, Bara'a Muhammad Salim al Sudani, who was also known as Khallad al Farisi, was killed on April 11 during heavy fighting in the Yemeni city of Lawdar, according to a statement that was released on the al Qaeda-linked Shumukh al Islam forum. The statement has been translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
The martyrdom statement described Salim as "the lion of the Two Niles, one of the lions of jihad in Sudan" who "grew up in the Arabian Peninsula" and had a degree in "communications engineering," according to the SITE translation. Salim "emigrated to the Khorasan of glory," or the Afghan-Pakistan region, with "his brother al Zubeir al Sudani," who was later killed there.
While in Pakistan, Salim fought with Abu Laith al Libi, a revered al Qaeda military commander who led Brigade 055, the terror group's military formation in Afghanistan. Abu Laith was killed in a US drone airstrike in January 2008.
Salim's unit fought Pakistani commandos in the Sadqi area of Miramshah in North Waziristan, and was captured along with other fighters. "He remained in captivity for several months, then he was handed over to the Sudanese government, which in turn imprisoned him and interrogated him for a while, and then released him," his martyrdom statement said. He was imprisoned two other times before traveling to Yemen to wage jihad with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its political front, Ansar al Sharia.
His martyrdom statement also said that "he has brothers who emigrated to Somalia." One of those "brothers," Suheib Salim al Sudani, was killed two months ago while fighting alongside with Shabaab, al Qaeda's affiliate in East Africa.
"Foreign fighters" are reported to have been killed during fighting in Yemen over the past several months. In fact, on April 11, the same day that Salim was killed, Yemeni officials claimed that "a number of al Qaeda leaders and militants, including Saudis, Somalis and Pakistanis were killed" during fighting in Lawdar.
Over the past two weeks, Yemeni troops and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula forces have fought pitched battles for control of Lawdar. AQAP sparked the fighting in Lawdar when it attacked a military outpost, overrunning it and seizing military equipment, including four tanks. The military claimed it ejected AQAP from Lawdar and killed more than 200 AQAP fighters while losing dozens of soldiers and allied tribesmen.