Abu Yahya al-Libi (1963-4 June 2012), born Mohamed Hassan Qaid, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and Al-Qaeda. He was killed in a CIA drone strike at Mir Ali, Pakistan in 2012.
Biography[]
Mohamed Hassan Qaid was born in Murzuk (Marzaq) in Libya around 1963, and learned to speak Urdu, Pashto, and Arabic. He joined the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and Al-Qaeda, and fought in the Afghanistan War alongside the Taliban. He was captured by the US Army during the fighting, but escaped from Bagram in a breakout in 2005. Called a "warrior, poet, scholar, pundit, and military commander" and "...heir apparent to Osama bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire global jihadist movement" by the CIA, Al-Libi was a talking head on the media. He was an official on Al-Qaeda's Sharia Committee, one of its "politicians". On 4 June 2012, a CIA drone fired four missiles at a compound in Pakistan's North Waziristan region in the city of Mir Ali. Al-Libi and fifteen other militants were killed in the drone strike.