Al Qaeda Live Blog

Damascus has sent a letter to the United Nations accusing some Lebanese areas of helping al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood to take root along the Syrian border.

"Some Lebanese areas next to the Syrian border are incubating terrorist elements from al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, who are messing with the security of Syrian citizens and work on undermining the United Nations Special Envoy's plan," Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari wrote.

The letter was sent to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council.

"In some areas [of Lebanon] ... warehouses have been set up for weapons and ammunition that is arriving to Lebanon
illegally, either by sea, or sometimes through using the planes of specific countries to transport weapons to Lebanon and then smuggle them to Syria, under the excuse that they [aircraft] are carrying humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees," Ja'afari said.

He specifically said charities run by Lebanese Salafists and the Future Movement, led by the son of assassinated Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, were being used to provide safe haven to terrorists in Lebanon. 

Russia believes that al-Qaeda and its associates are behind the recent bomb attacks in Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said on Monday.

"For us it is absolutely clear that terrorist groups are behind this - al-Qaeda and those groups that work with al-Qaeda," he told reporters.

Twin suicide bombings in Damascus last week killed 55 people and wounded 372, raising fears that extremist elements were taking advantage of the deadlock in Syria to stoke unrest.

Gatilov, whose country has vehemently resisted Western pressure to take a harder stance against Bashar al-Assad,  said it was unlikely in the current circumstances that the opposition and government would negotiate.

"It is hard to say how things will go from here. In the immediate term the prospects of the sides sitting down at the negotiating table are not there."

Gatilov warned that the standoff could become a long-drawn-out conflict between two sides, neither of which are strong enough to inflict a final defeat on the other.

"We have a situation where there is a certain balance between government forces and opposition groups. The worst outcome is for this stagnation to continue." [AFP]

Twelve people including four policemen were killed on Saturday in an attack by Al-Qaeda-linked militants on a checkpoint in Yemen's southern port city of Aden, police said.

"Armed men from Al-Qaeda attacked a security forces checkpoint at Jawala at the northern entrance to Aden, killing four police officers," a police source told AFP.

The source, updating an earlier toll, said eight assailants were killed as security forces responded.

The attack comes after at least 222 people including 183 militants were killed in five days of clashes this week around the strategic southern town of Loder which Al-Qaeda is trying to seize, according to local sources.

The United States on Monday condemned the killing of an American in Yemen and urged authorities to hold the
perpetrators accountable after Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.

The State Department confirmed that Joel Shrum, an American working for the  non-governmental International Training Development Center, was shot dead on Sunday in Taez and said it was working to repatriate his remains.

"We condemn this terrorist act in strongest terms and we express our deepest condolences to his family and his friends," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

"We are urging Yemeni authorities to bring to justice those responsible for this heinous crime," she said.

A statement attributed to Al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack and accused Shrum of proselytizing Christianity in the Islamic nation.

Waldemar Braun, the director of the non-governmental group, denied the allegations and said Shrum was a development worker who "highly respected" Islam.

Braun said that Muslims and Christians work together at the center which has "continually focused on human development, skill transfer and community development."

The United States says the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is the most active branch of the global extremist network once led by Osama bin Laden.

Two days before Shrum's killing, an official said that suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen abducted a Swiss woman elsewhere in Yemen.

[Source : AFP]