Further details have emerged concerning Ibrahim Saleh Mujahid Al-Khalifa, a suspected member of Al-Qaeda whose death in security clashes in the Yemeni region of Hadhramawt last November was confirmed by sources in the Yemeni government on Sunday. Al-Khalifa's death was first announced on Al-Qaeda-affiliated websites in a statement which did not identify where he was killed, but Yemeni sources said he was one of several Al-Qaeda members killed in the Hadhramawt clashes. Al-Hayat Arabic daily reported Monday that Ibrahim Saleh Al-Khalifa was known as “Abu Jandal Al-Qassimi”, and was wanted by the Saudi Ministry of Interior but was not on the ministry's 2009 list of terrorist suspects. Al-Khalifa was “wanted by the relevant security authorities, but information linking him with Al-Qaeda only became available after the list was published”, Al-Turki, told Al-Hayat. Al-Khalifa graduated from the Teacher's College in Al-Ras in Qassim and, according to his brother Muhammad, later worked for two years as a science teacher at a primary school in the small town of Al-Shanana, 10 km from Al-Duawadami, 400 km to the west of Riyadh. He is believed to have trained in guerilla warfare tactics and how to make explosives after joining up with Al-Qaeda in Yemen, and became the leader of the Al-Qaeda cell that was operating in Hadhramawt. Al-Watan said Monday that Al-Khalifa left home one year and four months ago when he was aged 26, and that during his absence he contacted relatives three times by telephone. A brother of Al-Khalifa, Muhammad, told Al-Watan that he left 16 months ago after “requesting a month's emergency leave from work” and told relatives that he intended to go out to the desert with a group of friends. “A while after he disappeared he called us to say he was in Yemen and was fine,” Muhammad told Al-Watan. “We had another two calls from him, the last just after Eid Al-Fitr last year, when he spoke to our mother who urged him to repent and come home and let her see him before she dies.
