Most wanted Al Qaeda member surrenders, Saudi Arabia says

[democracy1st]

In the wake of Osama bin Laden's demise, is al Qaeda falling apart?

The Saudi Interior Ministry said today that a senior al Qaeda member on Riyadh's most-wanted list named Khaled al-Qahtani called from abroad and turned himself in.

"Interior Ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki said in a statement Wednesday that Khaled Hathal Abdullah al-Atifi al-Qahtani contacted the security authorities from an undisclosed country and expressed his wish to come home," the Associated Press reports.

"Al-Qahtani was reunited with his family and his surrender will be taken into consideration while looking into his case, Al-Turki said."

The Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman did not indicate when Khaled al-Qahtani gave himself up, but many members of the group's Yemeni wing, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have recently fled from Yemen, the AP writes.
It wasn't immediately possible to ascertain whether Khaled Al-Qahtani is the brother or relative of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi-born al Qaeda militant detained at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed al-Qahtani, now 32, had been picked up in the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan from which bin Laden is believed to have escaped.

UPDATE: The two men are not brothers, Gregory Johnson, a Yemen expert with Princeton University, told the Envoy:

"Al-Qahtani is a common Saudi name and there are many individuals in AQAP with that name...They may be related in some other more distant way."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theenvoy/20110504/ts_yblog_theenvoy/al-qaeda-member-surrenders-saudi-arabia-says

[Drunken Irishman]

1. I noticed this story on Yahoo's front page today...

But there is hardly any other mention of it anywhere. Why?

[FrenchieCat]

3. Media too busy pounding on Pres. Obama

for getting Osama not exactly as they would have dictated?

[fishwax]

5. (I think you mean Osama)

:P :)

[liberal N proud]

6. Gee, terrorist are turning themselves in rather than face the wrath of the US

The media does not want to tell that story while Obama is President. It makes the republicans look that much weaker in their own eyes.

No joy in Freeperville for the mighty bu$h struck out.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Sounds like he knows what's on Bin Laden's hard drives

D'oh.

Will the "War on Terror" be a mopping up operation?

[qazplm]

10. that might be it right there

and some folks might be picking who gets them so to speak.

[gateley]

4. Interesting. nt

[fishwax]

7. k/r

:kick:

[rbrnmw]

8. k&r Well the Obama team must have scared him

:kick:

He is a POS coward

[Ready4Change]

9. The message has been sent.

If this president knows where you are, the protection of your friends won't stop him.

From all I've heard, OBL was at that location for too long for our intelligence to NOT have known he was there. But politics kept the former administration from making moves. Didn't want to ruffle Pakistans feathers. Desired to keep OBL out there as a fear raising boogyman. And more.

Could the Bush43 administration have done this? Yes, and no. They could have before they had attempted to trash the reputations of the various intelligence organizations, before they had created their OWN intelligence organization to feed them cherry picked info that the existing organizations refused to, before they had outed assets useful for gaining intelligence on Irans nuclear ambitions. But after the Bush43 administration had, effectively, waged war against its own intelligence community? Not a chance in hell.

We could have had OBL a year ago. But the Obama administration had to repair the damage done by the previous administration first. The timing makes sense. The Obama administration came in, but took a while to re-develop the relations with the intelligence community needed to get the info, and feed it into the channels to develop plans, with support where needed, to get the job done.

At least, that's my $.02 on the issue.