DUBAI: A Saudi Islamist fighter wanted by authorities in his home country has been killed in a US air strike in Afghanistan, the pan-Arab Al-Hayat daily reported on Monday.
Saad Mohammed al-Shihri was killed "in an air strike by American forces on a position where Al-Qaeda members were meeting," the Saudi-owned newspaper said.
He was number 34 on a 36-person list of people wanted by Saudi authorities for security reasons, Al-Hayat said, describing him as an expert in training and weapons.
Shirhi’s mother told the newspaper that she was contacted by a stranger who informed her of the death of her son, who had been in Afghanistan for years.
NATO said last month that a September 18 air strike killed Al-Qaeda commander Abdallah Umar al-Qurasyshi, explosives expert Abu Atta al Kuwaiti "and several Arabic foreign fighters" in the eastern Afghanistan province of Kunar.
Saad’s brother, Yussef, was captured by US forces in Afghanistan and detained in the Guantanamo, Cuba prison for six years. He joined Al-Qaeda in Yemen after his 2007 release, and was killed by Saudi security forces in the kingdom’s south in 2009.
Another of Saad’s brothers, Abdel Majid, is also a member of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, Al-Hayat said.
Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda militants announced the merging of their factions into Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in January 2009, as intelligence reports have warned that Yemen has become a regrouping haven for Al-Qaeda veterans.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of the Saudi-born Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
