Jordanian al Qaeda fighter killed in Afghanistan

jabri.JPG

Abu al Zubeir al Jabri. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group.

A Jordanian who fought for al Qaeda in Afghanistan was killed last week while fighting US forces, according to a martyrdom statement released on a Jihadist website.

Abu al Zubeir al Jabri, who is also known as Saber Muhammad Saber, was killed “on the pure soil of Afghanistan while charging head on and not running away, during a raid on a Crusader base,” according to a statement released today by a jihadist known as Abu al Walid. The statement was released on a jihadist website and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

“The Levant in general and Jordan in particular is celebrating their martyr,” said Walid. The exact location of Jabri’s death was not provided, but Walid said Jabri was killed during fighting on July 15.

Jabri “quickly went to join the blessed convoy of Azzam, al Shami, Abu Musab, and al Khurasani,” Walid said, referring to prominent Jordanians who have been killed while fighting for al Qaeda.

The mention of “Azzam” refers to Abdullah Azzam, the mentor of Osama bin Laden who was killed in a car bombing in Pakistan in 1989. “Al Shami” refers to Abu Anas al Shami, the deputy of slain al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Shami was killed in Baghdad in 2004. “Abu Musab” refers to Zarqawi, who was killed in a US airstrike in Baqubah, Iraq in June 2006. “Khurasani” refers to Abu Dujani al Khurasani, an al Qaeda operative who carried out a suicide attack on the CIA in late December 2009 (see below).

Jabri is the latest Jordanian terrorist killed while fighting for al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The most infamous, Abu Dujanah al Khurasani, a longtime internet jihadi whose real name is Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi, carried out the Dec. 30, 2009 suicide attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost province that killed seven CIA officials and contractors, and a Jordanian intelligence officer. Khurasani was recruited by Jordanian intelligence to provide targeting information for the US’ covert air campaign against al Qaeda’s leaders and operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Khurasani had enticed the CIA with promises of being able to produce Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second in command, and then detonated a suicide vest once he was granted access to the base.

Mahmoud Hamdan Nizal, a Jordanian who was known as Abu Dher al Urduni, was killed while fighting US troops in the Bermel district in the eastern Afghan province of Paktia. The date of Nizal’s death was not disclosed. His death was announced in June 2011.

Also, the brother of a prominent Jordanian cleric has recently entered Afghanistan. Salahuddin al Maqdisi, the brother of radical Jordanian Islamist cleric Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi and a former aide to slain al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, is currently in Afghanistan, according to a statement released on a jihadist website.

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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5 Comments

  • Luca says:

    “The Perennial Fifty” must be really bummed that one of their lot has finally snuffed it…. No worries though there are still around Fifty AQ guys in Afghanistan and their numbers never dwindle, it’s a kind of magic, they say…!
    There are at least several hundred AQAM fighters throughout the country and several score arab mujahiddeen who decided to actually settle in Af or in Pak after the Soviet War – and these guys have intermarried locally big time – not v. likely they teach their kids about separation of church and state in co-ed schools…
    AQAM has become a permanent feature of the regional security landscape and has been so for almost 3 decades…”50 to a 100″…disgraceful…!

  • Max says:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015944/Soldiers-ordered-shoot-Taliban-planters—WAKES-UP-locals.html
    This article from the dailymail is outrageous. What is wrong with our old allies???

  • Infidel4LIFE says:

    In the end, North will still be fighting South, long after we leave. We are leaving, aren’t we??

  • Charles says:

    NATO says 50 insurgents killed in east Afghanistan

    http://news.yahoo.com/nato-says-50-insurgents-killed-east-afghanistan-084938735.html

    They located a training and staging camp in eastern afghanistan–and hit it.

    What I don’t understand is why this is not done more often.

    There can’t be a square inch of eastern Afghanistan that is not under aerial and satellite surveillance. Plus they capture enough guys in the interior of Afghanistan to get good confirming ground intelligence.

    There’s just no way a training camp –on either side of the border– could escape notice.

    They don’t even need to send troops. They just bomb the camps with precision missles. So maybe they send in a couple spotters and maybe they take out squirters with snipers. But that’s it. No big troop commitment. Just good intelligence.

    This just does not seem like it would be so hard to do.

  • Soccer says:

    Charles, I thought the same thing, but I believe it is easier thought, or said, than done.
    Paktika is a very mountainous province and it is easier for us to sit in our computer chairs and say the armed forces should be doing THIS, or doing THAT, in order to achieve our objectives.
    At the end of the day, not only does it come down to operational capacity, but whether it is viable for troops on the ground, or pilots in the air, to safely strike their targets. Our troops are the best of the best. All of NATO’s troops are. We shouldn’t be saying they should be doing X thing when we don’t even know how rough it is on the ground. OUR boots are not on the ground, theirs are.

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