Al Qaeda operative killed in Pakistan linked to Zarqawi

While news reports have focused on the death of senior al Qaeda operative Sadam Hussein Al Hussami, who is also known as Ghazwan al Yemeni, at the hands of the US in the March 10 airstrike in North Waziristan, one of the three other al Qaeda operatives killed in the same attack was also a longtime al Qaeda fighter and trainer. Among those killed was Abu Jameelah al Kuwaiti Hamed al Aazimi, a Kuwaiti citizen and former government employee who is a three-decade veteran of jihad, according to the martyrdom statement written by Abu Abdulrahman al Qahtani and translated by Global Terror Alert.

Aazimi was “our big brother; big in everything old in age,” according to Qahtani. Aazimi fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. After returning to Kuwait, he was employed as “an administrator in the Ministry of Religious Endowment, and he received a great salary….”

Later Aazimi fought against the US in Iraq, where he “accompanied al Zarqawi and remained with him for a period of time.” At some point Aazimi was wounded, and he returned home to Kuwait, where he was arrested. After his release from jail, he joined al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and eventually wound up in Miramshah in North Waziristan.

According to the statement, Aazimi was “the expert on explosives and the arts of engagement.” He fought “numerous engagements with the Americans and the apostates and he taught them great lessons at the Ancorada front, and their Humvees and tanks were a prey to his mines and their remains are still spread around those mountains.” [Note: I have not been able to determine where the “Ancorada front” was.]

Aazimi passed along his training to younger al Qaeda terrorists, according to Qahtani. “The young men would gather so he can teach them how to use grenades and mines and trained them how to build the explosives… the love for this science filled his heart….”

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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6 Comments

  • Mr T says:

    Wasn’t Anaconda the operation around Tora Bora when Osama was there?

  • Bill Roggio says:

    That was my thought too – Ancorada is close to Anaconda. I don’t want to assume, perhaps there is a reader out there that has the answer…

  • Neo says:

    Ancorada is Spanish for anchor, which makes no sense.
    Operation Anaconda was in Paktia province southeast of Gardez.
    These guy’s may not be knowledgeable about South American constrictors.

  • Render says:

    I have to agree, pending some other possibility, that that was a mis-spelling of “Anaconda.” The operation, or perhaps one of the failed attacks on the camp/FOB.
    ESL
    FAIL,
    R

  • kp says:

    The original text was in Arabic so a mangling of a foreign word might be expected. Even the typo is close (a handwritten n being picked up as an r?). Anaconda would also match up with the mountains too (not something one would expect for Iraq outside of Kurdistan).

    BTW Anaconda isn’t Spanish derived but suspected to be modification of the Sinhalese word henakandayā (for the Reticulated Python … the Asian version of the Green Anaconda). See we already mangled it.

    All that said it was an operation (not a front … perhaps the Arbaic words are similar?). Perhaps AQ has it’s own words for its own campaigns too? Why not.

  • raven52 says:

    Yeah, Anaconda……it couldnt be the village of Angorada. Sort of slipping on this one.

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