Abu Sufyan Said al-Shihri Abu Sufyan Said al-Shihri was --- or is --- the second most senior figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Last month, the Yemeni Defense Ministry announced al-Shihri had been killed "in an operation" in the Hadramawt Valley, a stronghold of AQAP in the south of the country.
But al-Shihri appears to have resurfaced with a defiant audio message.
2112 GMT: Syria. According to the Local Coordinating Committees, at least 40 people were killed by Assad forces today nationwide:
14 martyrs in Homs, 10 martyrs in Daraa (Tayba, Nawa, Inkhel), 7 martyrs in Damascus Suburbs (Douma, Daraya, Thayabiya), 5 martyrs in Aleppo (Izaz and Atareb), 2 martrs in Idlib and 2 martyrs in Kafr Zeita, Hama.
According to the LCCS, only 2 of those killed were members of the Free Syrian Army - 38 were unarmed civilians.
2033 GMT: Syria. Two videos released today give an impression of the scale of violence reported in the Hamidiyah district of Homs today. The first, 2 minutes long (before it repeats without sound), shows shells falling on the district at the center of what was once Syria's 4th largest city. The second video, more than 10 minutes of nearly constant shelling and gunfire, as smoke fills the sky:
Friday, October 26, 2012 at 8:25